r h a e l l a


The sun was nought but a wisp of golden mist on the horizon; elsewhere, everything was vast and blue with the darkness of twilight, and yet, already the mare was huffing and puffing to stay afloat, her long, lithe white legs churning through the cool thickness of the sea water. She had risen before sunrise, as befitted her family tradition, for all important things, as her mother had said to her, are best completed at the crack of dawn.

And, as she had hoped, Aeros had guided her yet again, this time away from the soundness of the earth to the rough foam of the ocean. She swam dutifully, her ears pricked, nostrils flared and eyes rolling in their sockets, aware of an almost paralyzing fear that there might be some ferocious sea monster lurking beneath her vulnerable body in the dark depths, but she carried on. Once she was out at sea, there was little more to do than keep going.

Land crept up on her faster than she had anticipated, but it appeared as little more than a huge shadowy mass, for the dim light of dawn was still hidden behind the ominous tropical forests that covered the island like a thick blanket. Her hooves skimmed sand, finally pressing down on the reassuring sureness of the earth, and she was all too grateful for her arrival to this alien place, for she'd managed to inhale some seawater in the last legs of her swim, and her airways burned with complaint.

She had just shaken buckets of wet from her pelt and was flicking her sodden blonde tail when she happened to glance to her left. There stood a figure, still as a statue, not twenty paces away. Rhaella's body gave way to the helpless panic of instinct: she lurched sideways, away from the figure, whose features and color were almost indistinguishable in the dim light, and screamed, her voice high and sharp.

”Fiend! Son of Malachite, stay away from me!”



mare : 3 : sooty flaxen chestnut sabino : saddlebred mix : 15hh
html, text, and character by shiva