This is all your fault, Iska, she thought bitterly as she climbed out of the sea. Everything was wrong, and she was in a terrible mood. Salt water sloughed off her back, dripped from her creamy tail, and stung her nostrils from when she’d accidentally inhaled it. Her muscles ached, her throat was dry with thirst, and the summer sun was beating relentlessly down on her, making her sweat before her coat was even dry. When a passing seabird let out a piercingly loud cry that sounded distinctly like a laugh, it took all of Everglow’s self-control to tell it to shut up.
It was all Iska’s fault, of course. If he had not left her - vanished into thin air, more like - she would not be in this position, swimming blind across a sea with little more than a prayer to guide her in the right direction. If he had not left her, she would not have been forced to return to the islands, a place she had not lived since she was a filly, to find the family she could barely remember. A blind horse could not survive alone, and the few herds she and Iska had encountered had seemed reluctant to take one under their wing. Braving the oceans to find the place she had once never hoped to see again was a bitter pill to swallow, but it was her best chance of survival. And if Iskulan ever decided to show his sorry face again, he knew where to find her.
Still sopping wet, Everglow marched inland, dark eyes staring sightlessly ahead. When they were not splayed sideways in irritation, her ears were busy, flicking to and fro like little satellite dishes, mapping out the world around her by sound. Thankfully, it was breezy today, so it was easy to hear where the trees were. Everglow skirted along the edge of them, testing the air with her nostrils, when suddenly she stopped dead. She could sense a presence in front of her. She listened - yes, there was breathing. It was a large horse. But how close were they? Was she close enough to--
--Everglow walked straight into the stranger, nose-first, getting a lungful of stallion musk. She scrambled backwards, ears pinned. “Excuse me,” she said, as if she was not the one who had walked into him. “Blind lady walking here!”
4; mutt; palomino; 15.1hh; blind
shamwari x brienne |