The Sugar Maple trees clumped with Red Maple, Aspen, Sweetgum, and more made for a dizzying array of autumn colors the further the season set. Klara – a few months shy of two-years-old – walked quietly among them, weaving around their thick trucks and peering occasionally up at the changed leaves. She remembered how fascinated she’d been with the eruption of color last autumn, when everything the world did was a brand-new experience. Now, though she knew to expect it, she still found it breathtakingly beautiful.
It was mid-morning, the frigid chillness of the earlier hours was melting away the higher the sun rose, but a certain coolness still held. The fog had broken away from the air, leaving empty blue skies without a cloud in sight. As Klara walked, the quiet of the world made her hoof steps feel louder than they were. She was a lighter build, a desert build, but even she couldn’t move silently over a ground littered in fallen leaves. Still, she didn’t exactly find the silence disturbing. It was almost a comfort.
Turning, Klara moved toward the Falls as her mother had already spent a decent amount of time briefing her daughter on the current dangers of going anywhere near the Lagoon. Not that Klara would go playing around in that stale-water mud anyways (which was pretty much what she’d told her mother too). There was nothing interesting to pull her toward the Lagoon and the Falls had always been a favorite place of hers to visit. Even if she didn’t find anyone to talk with it was sometimes fun to just eavesdrop and listen to stories of other horses who’d traveled from far away and think about the world away from the islands… or even those who lived on the other islands instead of just Crossing.
She felt as if she’d seen so much already but knowing there was still a whole world out there – a world where not everyone’s autumn looked the same – was incredibly exciting.
Klara walked from the trees into the clearing of the Falls, ears twitching as she glanced around for someone to talk to.
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