I Seem to Have Misplaced My Yearling, Again

Eira... Their hot, wet bodies brought a comforting humidity into the cool shelter of the cave as they hunkered down in safety while the storm’s skirt of fury passed over. The wind lashed on wildly and the thunder’s booming voice reached a peak outside, resonating through the very stone which concealed them. Eira shivered as the vibration rattled all but the deadened leg beneath her, but she felt an air of safety there, with her feathered friend and the great creature who had yet brought her no harm. Wriggling upon her bony elbows until the soft straw bedding was gathered beneath the points of her which pressed painfully against the hard floor, Eira smiled tiredly towards Roscorro. His towering figure stood alongside the colt and she watched as his dark lips drifted towards the other’s painted skin. There was a presence between them, an ease and familiarity that soothed Eira’s loneliness away. As the gentle hum of their voices mingled above the droning background song of the storm, the young filly yawned. The light around them was low, providing a serene atmosphere of illumination. Sleep dragged at her heavy, wilting eyelids, and her heart rate began to slow. As the frail child succumbed, her thoughts wandered back in time to a place that had been so filled with voices just as tender: a beach with crashing waves and sand as plush as the grass she now slept upon. The pale, withered face of her cursed father was there, though she saw nought but the love in his eyes. So too was her mother watching over, with a coat as clear as the star spangled sky beyond her. …and Indra. Eira imagined his warm body pressed in beside her and a heavy sigh escaped with a quiet rattle of her velveteen nostrils. "I am a book of snow, a spacious hand, an open meadow, a circle that waits, I belong to the earth and its winter."

- Pablo Neruda, Winter Garden

Notes:
Skipping Vynter with permission to wind the thread up for Eira’s trial.