Meadow

It was too bright to sleep.

The moon lay naked in the night sky, unburdened by clouds and staged by a smattering of stars that could not upstage it even if they tried. It should have been beautiful to look at.

Instead, it was an unwelcome sight in the silver mare’s eyes, a burden of memories that she did not wish to relive but could not stop from replaying in her mind, one after another, after another… Painful. Sickening. It left knots in her stomach and an ache in her chest that throbbed. Sleep had been unobtainable since evening had fallen and despite her attempts to find the peace that she had once felt the night she’d washed upon these shores, none had found her again. Not even in this meadow so still, so quiet…

All she could manage to hear was the thundering hooves of the past galloping through her mind, doing its best to barricade her future, if indeed she had one at all. A chain of islands. The new information she had received from others earlier in the day still rang through her head like a dull bell and had ceased to stop echoing in her thoughts all day and night. A chain of islands. A chain… of … islands.

A chain.

Hala sighed quietly, soft nostrils flaring a heavy breath of warmth into the night. With a burdened mind she turned from the meadow, quietly making her way through the field full of crickets as she headed towards the tree line. Perhaps it was in the shadows she would finally find the lull of sleep. Perhaps not. Either way... it was out of the moonlight.

The tall grasses tickled her belly as she walked, the moon shinning dully off her dappled coat. When she stepped into the small divot in the ground she had not realized it was a small watering hole. Hala stopped, puzzled by the splash of cool water on her legs and startled by the rippled reflection staring back at her in the water’s surface. Across from her blurred image was a glistening eye that, even though distorted by the water, shone bright enough to make her question only for a moment whether or not it truly belonged to another equine. As alarming as it was she did not look away from the water or take so much as a step back, momentarily mesmerized as she waited for the water to resume its stillness. When it finally cleared Hala could make out the rest of his face and her ears swiveled forward hesitantly.

The look in that eye seemed so familiar…