He wasn’t sure how long he had been here at this point. He hadn’t spoken to many other horses, so the days mostly just blurred together. The dappled crimson stallion spent his time circling the Crossing Isle, curious about the Peak, sometimes considering going into the Lagoon. But he never did. It looked bitter there in the winter, and he didn’t like the scent he got from the place, or the look of the bachelors who lived there. He knew that was judgmental of him, but didn’t think about it too much; Cinnamon had always been a good judge of character, and the Lagoon men just didn’t sit right with him, and he left it at that.
He was lucky his coat grew so thick in the cold, because the approaching spring was so far bringing no relief from the bitter cold. The winter felt just as deep as it had in the very thick of it, when heavy snowstorms had congested the island and made socializing somewhat of a chore.
Not that Cinnamon did much socializing.
But he didn’t consider himself lonely. At least, he usually didn’t think about loneliness until he was talking to someone, and then he usually thought to himself at least twice that this was much better than the conversations he had with himself in his head. Perhaps that was loneliness, and he just hadn’t connected the feeling to the word yet. In any case, he was thinking about loneliness today, as he trudged through the thick snow in no particular direction. The day was clear and sunny but bitterly cold, and he thought it might be nice to have a friend to help take the edge off the frigid air. Even if they didn’t speak with each other. He was thinking about how he would even go about making a friend at this point—he felt old, and out of touch with everyone considering he hadn’t spoken to another being in at least a week, and that wasn’t much different than his usual once-a-week conversations—when he found himself wandering into the Falls. Ah, so it was a Falls sort of day. The sunlight sparkled prettily on the cascading water and the pool into which it fell, and Cinnamon thought Falls days were his favorite. He wished he had a friend to talk about it with.
Thoughts of friends and loneliness abruptly scattered from his mind when, as he was approaching the pool for a drink, he heard a hiccuping breath from the trees to his right. He paused, turning, and caught sight of a light golden mare just as she broke down into heavy sobs.
Alarmed, Cinnamon abandoned his mission to the pool and trotted up to mare. Not wanting to scare her, he stopped a short distance away and called out in a gentle, friendly tone.
"Excuse me," he said. "I’m sorry to intrude. Are you alright? Is there anything I can do?"
she marks her fingerprints
in my skin
i breathe her perfume in
and it burns like heroin
now she's in me
and i can't let her go
