stargazer, your head full of sky
you were not ready for goodbye
The meadow certainly had its charms. After a few days spent criss-crossing its loosely-kept boundaries she could almost envision its fields in springtime, vibrant blooms swaying a technicolor dance under warm sunlight, bees humming industriously about the flanks of grazing horses. It might be nice to race across such an expanse, she thought. You know, when the grass isn't sharp as razorblades and the shriveled corpses of every animal, vegetable, and mineral of the past year aren't hard-packed into the landscape and lying in wait to ensnare unsuspecting ankles.
Sleia would actually have been fine risking her ankles, though. She just wasn't sure whether she'd found her way into an island community that appreciated the finer arts of running for no good reason at all.
Of late, the star-speckled mare found her eyes wandering beyond the meadow, wondering after the kingdoms whose presence just out of sight had been promised by Björn's deliberate use of the plural Isles. How many were there really, what were they like? Would there be anyone like her? What would that even look like? Already the horses here felt so foreign with their rigid and insular ways, their deep pride of place. Sleia had never felt such an attachment to anything at all, except her liberty.
Someone was calling out in the distance. She couldn't make out the words over the river's endless babbling, but her head shot up with unbidden interest. In winter, the river seemed almost draconian, steam billowing up from the water's surface just by virtue of the surrounding chill. A pale horse burst through the haze, rushing up behind the echo of her own voice and down with a flash into the frigid waters. Sleia chirped her surprise as the stranger hauled herself out onto the near riverbank, calling out 'Nobody?' with the same purposeful intent as someone else had hissed heartbreak.
It seemed a peculiar custom among these island folk to address others with seemingly random titles. That was all well and good, but Sleia did not know whether there was a repertoire of 'proper' epithets, or whether certain things might be considered rude beyond the widely-accepted seven words you can't say on television. Ah well. Luckily, Sleia knew how to lean on her own ignorance to get herself out of trouble.
"Sleia, actually!" she called back with a questioning rise in her voice, knees flashing high as she trotted to where the moon-dusted stranger had landed at the riverside. "That was absolutely mental, dude!" Admiration flashed across her face. "Are you looking for someone? Aren't you cold?"
sleia *
hope is a butterfly, no net its captor