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Not very much could be said of the rather gangly filly that picked her way through the rather quiet meadow. She is scruffy in her winter coat, feathers somewhat muddied by her treks through the wetter areas of the crossing, and she boasts nothing remarkable or particularly eye-catching amid a crowd of her peers. She will not grow much taller than she is now and she is not slender or lithe like some of the other fillies she’s seen in passing.
But she is young yet and while she does not prance or frolic about like a foal, she does often still admire the world with typical childish naiveté. She has only an innate understanding of what life means to a creature like herself but otherwise little understanding of how things really can work and how dark circumstances could possibly become. She has been sheltered for the brief time she has been alive and has thus known very little beyond the day-to-day drudgery of grazing, roaming, and the occasional ‘dramatic’ adventure (typically little more than an imaginative exploration of a forest or chasing fish in rock pools on the beach).
As any such child unsullied by the true unpredictable throes of the universe, she has often and more persistently begun to grow bolder in striking out on her own and now, at last, that time has truly come. She does not walk boldly or proudly to flaunt that fact, though. She merely wanders the same as usual, body language entirely neutral except for a slightly-raised head, ears swiveling and eyes alert. This place is new to her, after all, and she’d rather not miss any of it - which includes the approaching sound of hoofbeats and the gentle rustle of a body moving through the rather bristly wintry grasses.
a night discharged of all care
SHUDDER