I'm the moon that pulls the tide that takes the sand; Posted on May 19, 2022 at 03:18:18 AM by Antiope
Her memory is white, searing light, and then, total darkness. When she awakes, she is laying prostrate amidst what can only be a battlefield. She can barely move for the pain that radiates across her neck and down her left shoulder. The cloying stench of scorched flesh and hair still lingers. Her eyes are wild, white rimmed in the moonlight. She staggers to her feet as scavengers feed on the bodies of the fallen. Fiery white eyes turn towards the commotion. A yip yip and a howl sound into the stillness, and she runs into the nearby sea.
The salty water stings the wound on her neck and shoulder and she winces as the water rises until she is swimming with only the flat plain of her face slipping through the water's surface.
The darkness of a primordial jungle looms before her as dawn pinks the water. Antiope, exhausted enters, leaving her past with the sea behind her.
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The raucous chorus of jungle creatures has become a comfort to her as she sleeps. Her wounds heal, but there is a jagged scar that runs like tree roots from her poll, over her shoulder and across her chest. Eventually the pink new flesh will blacken, but her hair will never return to those places where the lightning marked her.
Eventually, she leaves her place in the trees, wending her way through trunks wider than she is long, dipping beneath vines, and slipping quietly through the understory until, almost suddenly, the blue of a sunlight bay peeks from the windows of the trees, and for the first time in weeks, she steps into the warmth of the full sun.
Walking along the furthest reaches of the tide, hoof prints disappearing seconds after she leaves them, she wanders the southern border of the jungle Paradise she has lingers in these past weeks. A distinct dark shape rests on the sand, and Antiope pauses, the shallow waves hushing against her hooves. Dipping her head low, she approaches, pausing as the shape of a prostrate horse morphs into view. She nickers a low "Hullo?" Replies: