Meadow

Kimber is quiet as she stands in the sleeping company of Askold and his mother. Her gold eyes sweep over them both, though her heart pounds wildly in her chest as she does. She needed to leave, before they left her. Though they had been good to her, if her own mother would not stay for her sake, why would anyone else? Swallowing down her anxieties, the young mare slowly and carefully slinks away from them and to the shoreline in which the red colt had found her that day of her first escape. Her determined gaze sweeps over the calm waters, but memory reminds her it is all a trick. Further out, the sea would not show such mercy. But if she had survived it as a weanling, she could survive it now as a yearling.


Knowing she couldn’t hesitate any longer or else Askold might catch her, Kimber thrust her way out into the water. The chill was shocking and nearly took her breath away. She was used to the warm humid air of Atlantis, but not anymore. The filly refused to look back, or to worry about what would happen now that she left. Each strike her powerful legs made pushed her further away, and her face was set with determination.


When land finally loomed ahead, Kimber had no idea which one it might be. But by now she had grown tired from swimming, her young chest having to carve its own way through the water instead of towed along by a larger horse’s current. Wobbly legs draw her drenched form on land, and she stands there a moment just outside of the water’s reach to take it all in. “Wow” she murmured, the scent of others heavier here than she had ever experienced before. It was exhilarating.


Excitement quickly wearing off her exhaustion, Kimber perked up and trotted off from the shoreline and into the land unknown. Who would she meet? Would they be interesting or scolding? She snorted out a laugh at the thought of some stranger trying to tell her what to do. She was free! And she could do whatever she wanted.