When the sun rose, so did the heat, burning the early mist so fast off the grass she hardly had a chance to feel her feathers grow wet with dew. Impa could have made the trek up the mountain to where the air was thinner and the wind stronger, but instead her heart called her to the Falls. A dip in the pool there sounded heavenly on a day that only promised to get muggier as the sun rolled on, and so out the black mare goes. She starts her trek in high spirits, only a little irritable about the sticky heat more befitting a summer afternoon than a late spring morning, and amuses herself by trying to count the number of horses in each group she passes. It's a tricky game but that's why she likes it: when one horse speaks the others typically fall silent to listen, and the busy traffic of insects, small wildlife, and various other horses on their way to or from Somewhere mask the sounds of the silent audience who might shift their weight or sigh or murmur in response to the conversation at hand. There aren't many out on a day like today, however.
Impa slows as she passes one group of young horses who laugh together, dropping her head to nose at the grass as she witnesses their mirth. Then someone bolts, likely having initiated a game, and she is alone again. Hot, sticky, and now thirsty, the cloudy-eyed mare lifts her head, ears twisting, but beyond the fading hoofbeats of the scattered youths she hears little else of note— certainly not the roar of the falls. Not even a trickle of water reaches her. Impa turns in a slow circle and tries to discern what she can from the indistinct shapes and fuzzy colors perceived by her right eye. Most is a hazy blend of green and yellow interrupted here and there by a singular dark, thick vertical swath of what can only be a lone tree trunk. There should be the familiar, hazy gradient of bright-to-dark greens denoting a dense stand of trees, or the lumpy tan, gray, and white of the rocks so prevalent by the Falls. She snorts, and on her next inhale detects rain. Great.
Somehow she has bypassed the Falls entirely and walked all the way to the Meadow— it doesn't stink of stallion, so she knows it can't be the Common. With an irritable snap of her thick black tail, Impa snorts again and trudges forward. Whose idea was it, anyway, to make the meadow right next to the Lagoon a fucking free-for-all? Like dangling apples in front of colts, she grumbles. Briefly, she considers traversing even further to make a circuit of the claiming grounds, but a rumble of thunder overhead dashes that idea immediately. There isn't any good cover nearby, and right as the blanketed draft picks up her feet to jog toward the nearest tree —a young sapling with a canopy still reaching upward rather than outward, not that she can see it— lightning lances through the clouds roiling overhead. Thunder booms again, stopping Impa in her tracks as she startles. The hefty mare stands stiff-legged with her ears turned out as the clouds crack open and pour their water over the world.
Impa stands sodden in the middle of the meadow as her hair is slicked down her whitened forehead and tacked against her neck. Her ears flatten indignantly against this onslaught. What had begun as a humid venture toward the Falls has deteriorated so rapidly into the ridiculous that she almost can't help but chuckle. Three-quarters blind and evidently so empty-headed she can't even follow the sound of a stream to the generous waterfall she's visited almost yearly for the first decade or so of her life, Impa stands soaking wet in a field. At least there's a cool breeze cutting through the heavy heat alongside the rain, though now she feels in danger of catching a chill.
Impa lifts her head skyward and, laughing, gives herself up to the rain. |
IMPAZIENZA