My memory rests but never forgets
What I lost

The warm summer air curled around me as I made my way through a small stand of pines. Their thin needles brushed against me as I passed beneath their bows. Walking next to me, her shoulder bumping my hip with every stride, was Beanna, my filly. Since that dark night of her birth light had been shed on more then just her coat color. The lanky red dun filly with her dorsal stripe and leg barring that reminded me to much of her father was not perfectly healthy as I had assumed. There was a reason why in those first few moments after her birth she had seamed so disoriented. A reason why she clung to me like a burr as she grew, and it was the reason why even now, as quickly as she was growing, she still kept contact with my body as we walked. My daughter was blind.

Everytime I looked at her I saw failure. I saw everything she wasn't. Why did I only ever birth week foals? I did not blame them for their faults. It was my own doing, I was the one who had braught them into the world defected and unfit. But what could I do? Nothing now. Beanna was born without vision, fated to live dependent on others, if she lived at all.

But that at least was something that I was completely sure of. She would live. I had seen one foal die already and I would not see it again. My first had been undersized and damaged, I could not say if he would have made it anyways. Certanly he would have dragged my herd down, so it was only natural they snuff him out. But that did not lessen the pain of seeing it happen.

My thoughts were jarred back to reality by a shrill call that burst into the quiet like gun shot. I startled, my feet diging into the ground as I slammed to a hault and leaned back, pressing Beanna behind me. The call had come frome very near and with a carfull intake of breath I realized a scent I knew was wreathing around me. Anath, who I had not met but knew to be very respected here, and whose scent was heavy over the whole teratory.

I was startled by the brush of Beanna's red pelt against mine as she moved past me. I watched her walk, slowly and surly around a tamarack tree, amazed that she could navigate without me. It was not a graceful or speedy progress she made, but it was progress none the less. And then her hoof clicked over a stone in her path and she stumbled, caught herself, then turned her head back in my direction. Waiting for her suport to come back. I felt my chest grow heavy as I breached the gap between us and nudged her on. What a sick thing that there was that one word haunting me everytime I, her mother, gazed on the young girl.

Weak.

My ears snapped forward as we entered a grassy clearing, my head lifting and silver neck arcing. A champagne dun mare whos scent marked her as Anath, the one who had called us here, was rolling like a foal in the grass. Dust and grass flew up into the air as she rubbed. I stared down at her, my body stiff.

After a moment of awkwardness I raised my head higher and spoke. "Hello. My name is Iolar and this is Beanna, my foal. You called us here?"

Silver grullo | 14.3hh | Rocky mountain horse | 5 | The Peak | Gecko

Red dun | 15hh wfl | Nokota x Rocky mountian horse | Border x Iolar | The Peak | Blind