Hanging on by a thread

Eira... The rainforest there above the frothing, roaring ocean was familiar to her, more so perhaps than any other area rambling through the Rift, and she took comfort in the dank blanket and the gentle whisper of the breathing wilderness surrounding. Perched half-upright across weak, wobbling knees, the young filly found herself alone once again. Though the leaves mingled and chatted together in their, hushed, well-natured tone, and the the low hum of insects attracted by her wounds filled the void of silence, Eira couldn’t help but ache for the return of the stranger who had all but vanished without a word. Bleary eyes hunted through the wall of trunks and wispy green, willing the murky shadows to spit him from their midst. To her delight the colt appeared and as her wasted limbs gave way, his warm breath swept forth to spill across her healing form. She let her chin slip back to the cool and fragrant soil, yet her bright blue gaze never once relinquished their fast fix upon him - not this time. The colt-foal lay warm against her as the biting sea breeze swept in flurried bursts across the moonlit beach. She could feel the steadiness of each slumbering breath he took, the rhythmic thudding of the bold heart within his chest; it beat in unison with her own, each downy body rising and falling to the silent melody of their binding love. Her eyes travelled to the glittering arc of illuminated blue-black far above before tiny velvet, slit-nostrils slipped beneath the refuge of his deliciously familiar flavour. The gentle, yet insistent lips of her mother caressed her soft silvered mane and smoothed backwards the fluffy ears propped up curiously to either side, breathing as she did so, a slow and sleepy lullaby. Resting a cheek against the cushion of her brother’s quilled wing, the babe nestled deeper against his flesh and at last closed her eyes. Eira loved Indra, all  the way to those beautiful stars, and back. Quietly, trustingly, she studied his benevolent expression, and at the same time, with a contemplative tilt of her head, the scrawny filly regarded the firm instruction given to not touch her weeping body. The little pale veil of hair draped between her neat, pointed ears, slipped smoothly down across the pale star on her forehead. Without another word, the stranger turned from her though, and began to sift through a collection of curious bits and pieces (leaves with lotions in their deeply cupped centres, and a variety of grasses and herbs), discarding them under a heavy cloud of silence into the litter already rotting around them. Eira absorbed it all with an inquisitive, intuitive eye. Hours passed mother and daughter where they lay leant against each other, surveying the slow crawl of the clouds across the horizon, noting the way the wind coiled through their midst, shaping them with playful gusts and bustling them ever along on their way. The young girl wondered in quiet fascination, what sort of marvellous view their pasty, cotton-white bodies saw of the sand and surf world below - whether they were gazing back at that same moment, considering the frail blue girl who’s mind was ever lost in thought. She was captivated by flight, intrigued by all that transpired where the sun and the moon swayed around and around, just beyond one another’s reach; where her mother would tumble and swerve so free. But she was frightened of it too, for the sky’s mood could turn suddenly, she had seen power-white blacken ominously and blinding forks burst down upon the earth; she had smelled the wood it scorched and heard the fury of its roar. She feared for her mother, blending into the grim grey of each storm, yet Cirrus seemed drawn, compelled by the energy therein. Indra wasn’t scared; ‘one day I’ll touch the clouds like Ma,’ he proclaimed. She scrabbled to her feet with better strength than she was used to as he turned after a time spent stretching and a sliver of sudden panic streaked through her young complexion; Eira didn’t want him to leave, she felt safe with him there - like she always had with Indra. Stumbling forward across the floor like a foal on new legs, she drove her quivering nose beneath the feather cascade by his hip and nestled as near to his warm flank as he might allow. A violent crack of lightning burst down through the branches and fried the soggy ball of moss left behind; the filly’s eyes widened fearfully and she pressed even nearer. The Rift had indeed cursed her, and she was rather powerless to stop it.   "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