stargazer, your head full of sky
you were not ready for goodbye
There is a certain fevered sweetness that follows sickness, a warning to all that rattles the nerves in a subversive, visceral way. Sleia had never faced the creeping horror of a plague or the more urgent threat of a rabid animal, but as the wind shifted her hackles rose all the same. Something was wrong.
Her normally-exuberant travel through the meadow turned into a doe-like tiptoe, ears and eyes flickering to find the threat that was promised. And if she did, what then? Would she face it bravely? Could she face it at all? That's unhelpful, the copper mare scolded herself. None of it matters if the damned thing finds you first.
A rustle erupted in the underbrush nearby that did not follow the whims of the wind. Sleia froze, and just as quickly reared up as a whirlwind of tawny fur erupted from hiding, white flecks wreathing bared fangs. The creature's eyes were glassy and unfocused; it stared straight through her bicycling hooves, cowered only at her warning scream. She lunged sideways away from it, aiming a hard kick that sent it scurrying wide. It tried to double back; she exploded in a flurry of bucks and kicks, bounding away across the meadow, not pausing to look behind her until the only body she could hear snapping and crunching through the grass was her own.
Her sides heaved like a bellows. Her heart was a bird beating frantically against the bars of its cage.
Scanning the meadow now, she saw only stillness before her, but there were bound to be horses in the meadow that were unaware of the danger. Head high, flagging her golden tail like a banner, the star-speckled mare took off at an energetic trot, her clarion call echoing across the meadow. There was danger afoot in the underbrush.
sleia *
hope is a butterfly, no net its captor