Fattened upon the stuff of dreams and mare’s milk; she felt more like herself - adventurous and with a proud jut of her chin, she named herself a scout in her horse-tribe’s honor and decided to count coup on the grass and the dandelions that she decimated with her breath.
She traipsed through the fields in the name of exploration and refused to accept defeat when met by rivers that she found she could ford though the waters were chest-high and their currents swift. (Once, she attempted to leap from rock to rock, watching a frog’s success with this, but she found that her purchase upon the slippery-wet rocks was precarious at best and she ended up sitting on her bruised rump laughing at her self.) She climbed hills just to stand tall atop them then tumble down afterwards, a mess of legs and horse-girl giggles.
There was no mother to tell her to stay close and no neighs to call her home as night grew close; she had no one to answer to but her self and she reveled in the strange and lonesome freedom that was hers for the taking for the time being. Part of her held some doubt and possessed some regret but she forgot it in all the childishness of joy and games of her own devising. She bucked and hopped and crowed her challenges to the sky.
She tried to race the clouds but they moved too slow for her.
She tried to hold her breath longer than the sun but it burned - not breathed.
She tried to chatter noiselessly like the river that meandered by but its nonsense stirred irritation in her.
She settled into the grass; laid on her side and stared at the horizon, blinking it into existence and then out again, time after time until she tired of this game. The ground thrummed lightly with the exuberance and excitement of another nearby and she stuck her nose straight up in the air (which would appear quite comical since she was obscured by the tall grasses and all but her flaring nostrils and whiskered muzzle was discernable) to scent the whereabouts of such dancing.
The smell was strange to her - as most things here were; she scrambled to her feet without any grace (that would come later) at all and stared at him. “What manner of strange beast are you?” she called to him across the scant distance; splay-legged and ears flopping in opposite directions as she stared at him. He was like no foal she had ever seen and she was more curious about him than fearful. “Well?” she demanded, her chest puffing up like she had seen stallions do before the air whooshed out of her and she laughed.
She danced a small circle around him, poking her muzzle at his shoulder and his haunch, sniffing him and spinning away only to dance right back to him; her eyes dark and curious. “You remind me of the antelope back home!” and she laughed again.
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