She was not sure where she was, other than in the midst of an endless, frigid cloud. Still unused to the steep cold of this dreadful season, the filly shivers as her dainty hooves carry her through the world, the divots left in her wake revealing the frosty shine of ice layered over the earth below. Occasionally, some creature or another stirs the tops of the shrubs hidden in the mists, shaking away the powdery snow to the floor, and her forward path pauses, and her small head suddenly jettisons up, her ears lifted, and her pale eyes fasten on the distant scurrying, before she carries on.
Having been chased throughout the night by some scary shadow beast, Gwyn was still on high alert. Not just for monsters, but also for sound or sign of her father, whom she’d become separated from in the dark. Having long since given up on her nickering into the night for his or Duir’s reply, the dawn had come and gone, and the girl had all but consented to the truth that she was alone.
It came with a dark and lurching sort of reality that the normally fearless appaloosa found almost overwhelming. Though she pretended to be brave, stepping boldly when she dared through the seemingly endless fog bank, her heart hammered in her chest, and every foot fall came with a silent prayer that, any minute now, her dad and his ever watchful buck would appear from the mists.
They never did though.
Rather, a branch reached out for her, seemingly from no where, and with a squeal of fear she recoils, and nose moving quickly towards her chest, and her small, useless horn brandished before her. Feeling foolish as she realizes what it actually is, her ears slowly lift, and she cautiously unfurls herself from her defensive position. Inquisitively approaching the hidden thing, she reaches up and touches its mist-dampened, fire blackened trunk with her muzzle, feeling oddly sympathetic for what must have once been a regal tree.
Uwaritace, whispers a strong, female voice in the girl’s mind.
“Who’s there?” she frightfully demands of the mist as she stumbles back several paces, her heart seeming to hammer against her breastbone, and her golden horn again brandished, as her father had taught her. Her back glows and crackles with defensive, electrical sparks that wildly arc and sparkle in the damp air, and the filly looks all around her for the source of the voice, her lion’s tail anxiously swishing behind her.
|
Uwaritace
