Meadow

Sleia had chosen solitude freely and with full understanding of what she would be sacrificing. Sure, she'd waved her proverbial banner in hopes that some like-minded individuals might be so inspired, but the truth of the matter was that horses like her were few and far between, and more so among the herds of her adolescence. Not that she felt special or anything - far from it. More accurately, her specific combination of philosophy and poor impulse control produced, in plain terms, a pretty lousy horse.

So the copper mare struck out alone, and fidgeted through the first days like a newly liberated twenty-something experiencing the joyful horror of having nobody there to stop her from eating pizza and playing video games all day for the first time in her life. Everything enchanted and terrified her in equal measure, and before long that became the goal.

Swim through frigid shark-infested waters to that weird island over there? That sounds awful, we're doing it.

And long story short that's how the star-dusted mare got here, and that's the mindset she adopted as she scoured the meadow's edge in the predawn chill, hunting for the next fork in a trail nobody could see but her. And then....

Heartbreak.

Sleia startled with a snort, muscles twitchy as she danced in a shallow arc in anticipation of claws and teeth to follow, but they never came. As swiftly as she had balked, her pinned ears flicked forward with an inquisitive bob of her chiseled head. The word was distinctly equine, and distinctly unhappy, but it didn't seem like the sort of thing an attacker would say and she didn't seem like the sort of horse an attacker would be interested in attacking at night, in public, in the dead of winter. After a moment's scrutiny, she thought she could make out the culprit coiled like a snake in the shadows.

"Gee," she called back, oblivious of the word's meaning or the stranger's intent and fully willing to hope for the best, "I sure hope it doesn't. Are you all right?"