Pilar’s memory was fickle—spotty like a cloud-scattered sky. There was still plenty of blue, enough to comprehend the larger picture, but the details of certain events were obscured. She does not remember much about being young, but she knew she had parents. Their faces were lost to her, but she does remember their legs—long and spindly like her own. She remembered running with them across hard-packed sand and the dust as it flew into her nose, caking her sweaty brown coat. She did not remember how she came to be separated from them, or whether or not it was intentional. She does remember standing on the beach in the common lands, and the golden stallion named Kasabian who brought her to the Ridge.
“No,” she answered him simply. “I wasn’t born here. It was somewhere hot and dusty, with others like me. A lot of us. We ran somewhere—and not the exuberant kind of running,” she added. She did remember the stakes being higher—the kind of galloping one does when one’s life depended upon it. “I washed up on the beach here, and went to live in the Ridge after that.”
She watched his face from the corner of her eye, flicking her dark tail and wondering if this was enough to satisfy his curiosity. He seemed the sort that would never be satisfied—but Pilar didn’t mind. She was hardly ever content herself. Her memory loss was frustrating, especially because she knew that there was likely a time she could remember.
“There were stallions who took me from the Ridge too—at least one I can recall. That’s when I started forgetting. But I won’t forget his face. He is a wraith, I think.”
Perhaps if there was something Pilar could do about Psychedelic, and how he loomed over her like a dark spirit, she might remember again. But she wasn't sure how to purge him from her mind the way he seemed to have clouded hers. With expectant eyes, she blinked at Trell. Maybe he would have answers for her, if she was lucky.
pilar
Look at this tangle of thorns.
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