She is too caught up in the tempest of her own eyes to notice the approach of the painted stallion. She sees the stars in her gaze, their radiance mirrored twice in the surface of the water—twinkling first in the midnight sky, and then again in the intensity of her expression—and she wonders if she will ever find the heart of that young girl again (carefree, weightless, naďve). A time when there were no walls, callouses, or traps to line the path it might take to find it now. She reminisces for a moment, caught up in the whimsy of nostalgia, before old wounds smart beneath barely-healed scars and she reminds herself why her iron walls have become a necessity.
The heart of that girl is gone, Rim admonishes herself.
“You have a fire in you, my little princess,” she can hear her mother saying to her, clutching her close and nuzzling tenderly against the downy fur of her cheek, “Don’t let them take that from you.”
It is that fire that continues to smolder in her caramel eyes—wild, raging, and hardly jaded in the darkness of night as she turns with a snap of her head to focus on the tobiano stranger. He is perhaps as caught off-guard by her presence as she is by his. Still, the mahogany mare says nothing, her chin subtly rising in an unconscious display of confidence, unyielding, as she waits for him to make the first move.
When he does, it is gentler than she expects it would be. The lines of his slender figure quickly ease from their initial tension, but Rim does not mirror his relaxation (it is not in her to do so, not with a stranger).
Her ears flick forward at his inquiry, though her lips immediately twist into something that hovers between a smirk and a sneer. “If I could sleep, then I’d tell you to piss off so I could get some peace and quiet to do so,” there is a biting humor in her tone, and something unapologetic in her expression. A breath passes before she continues, an implicit sigh as her eyes continue to pin him in his place. “As it is…I suppose you’re in luck,” Rim chuckles with a darkness that is directed more towards herself than the stallion, knowing it is a matter of opinion. She is well aware that there are few who would consider her company a pleasure.
Reminding herself that she doesn’t care and clutching her iron walls closer to her chest, she flicks her thick tail sharply around her hocks. The rigid set of her jaw does not mitigate, but she allows his comment to guide her gaze upward, tracing the unfamiliar patterns that sparkle against the navy black. “I’ve always been partial to the stars,” she hums in agreement, “they never hurt my eyes like the sun can.” There is a moment where Rim almost smiles, the ghost of something softer haunting her gaze. A trick of the light, perhaps—whatever it is, it is gone by the time her attention returns to the one standing at her side.
you were wild once
don’t let them tame you.
Rim
dark bay Hanoverian mutt | 16.1hh | five years old | reli