Meadow

Hawke

xxy / six / grullo tobiano / mixed breed / 15.3hh

Hawke awoke to the pounding of hir own heart, the cold air gelid in hir lungs.

Moments passed before the grullo remembered where shi was, and in that time the thrumming beat in hir chest had slowed. One golden eye drank in the transformation that had taken place over the course of the night - the other, seeming reluctant to rouse from its slumber, still shuttered behind a drooping lid. A pale strip of flesh cut across the sunken socket like a fissure, stretching grotesquely when the creature's inky muzzle split in a yawn. This self-comforting gesture helped to drain the remaining tension from Hawke's body, grounding the grullo in ways that hir too-pristine surroundings could not. Shi had been dreaming of Atlantis - of the dark maze of its jungles, and the dangers it held.

The memory had been so vivid that it was disconcerting to awaken to the crystalline shimmering of snow, and the chilly nip of wintry air. A light dusting had coated the androgynous creature in hir sleep, and Hawke's mousy coat twitched in an effort to dislodge the cold blanket from hir back. The rose-and-lavendar tones of dawn were just lightening the sky, but the grullo did not bestir hirself - feeling indolent, hir gold eye beginning to drift closed once again. Lacking the weighty burden and boundless joy that came with responsibility to a herd, there was nothing in particular to motivate the nomadic equine from the copse in which shi'd taken shelter.

Hirs was a leisurely - and lonely - existence.

Sleep had nearly reclaimed Hawke when hir ears twitched suddenly forward, their dark tips nearly touching. The silent still of the meadow was suddenly broken by the dull, staccato rhythm of hooves, and with a soft grunt of exasperation the grullo blinked hir eye open once again, gazing blearily out into the meadow. There, a bay-and-white stallion wove across the white carpet in complicated patterns, the graceful flow of his strides resembling a dance. Hawke's irritation faded as shi watched, feeling the strange desire to join the stallion build within hir. It was tenuous at first; a spark that flickered and might have died. But, fueled by inexpressible emotions within the tobiano equine, the spark took hold, and a fire burned within hir chest.

Emerging from the thicket, Hawke joined the ballet.

Had there been judges present to score their performance, the grullo's would have fallen woefully short. Hirs was a body built more for power than for grace - a masculine bulk not unlike hir father's, though somewhat-softened by effeminate curves. But where shi lacked in elegance, Hawke compensated in expression, kicking out hir heels on occasion to send sprays of snow soaring through the air in elaborate patterns. Finally, with a half-rear and a toss of hir multicolored mane, the drab-colored horse came to an abrupt halt. Steam rose from hir nostrils as shi exhaled harshly, the sound of hir snort breaking the silence and seeming to bring hir back to earth.

Suddenly self-conscious, the grullo's dark ears swept uncertainly out to the side, and hir sable tail whisked back and forth like a pendulum - counting the seconds before shi would turn and flee.

*hir and shi are gender-neutral pronouns