drag my teeth across your chest
to taste your beating heart

Fishbone gave a simple nod of acknowledgement at the mare’s thanks. She was somewhat relieved that the stranger took her words without offense, given recent events. Her gaze lingered on the colt for a few moments longer, watching as he searched for his mother’s milk and began to feed. She missed the children, she realised.

She shook her head to clear the thoughts, sweeping them away like cobwebs from a branch. It was then that she realised that the mare in front of her was still a stranger. Fishbone turned her mismatched eyes to hair instead, watching her with careful interest.

“Fishbone,” she said simply, almost without context, as if this was the answer to an unspoken question. She gave a small bob of her head in greeting.

Almost without realising it, she felt her gaze sliding back down towards the colt again. There was something familiar about him, she felt the echo of it in her bones. It seemed like a sign, an indication for her that this was a place to stay – for now, at least.

She shifted her weight stiffly from one leg to the other and looked back to the mare.

“I can watch him for you,” she said, as coolly and calmly as someone who had been friends with this stranger for years. “Sometimes. If you’d like. I used to do that.”

Her words were blunt, yet stunted a little by her unfamiliarity with this place and these women. She felt much like a child trying to force their way into a group of fast friends. It was not her natural position. But then what was the alternative?

“I will be staying here for some time, I think.”

FISHBONE
FISHBONE