Meadow

Moonlight glittered across the meadow before her, sparkling off of the freshly fallen snow that blanketed the world. Had Ingrid not arrived hours earlier, before the storm had darkened the sky and poured out its essence over the land, she wouldn't have been able to tell that a small brook, nearly choked into silence by the ever-thickening ice, ran through the middle. All that remained as evidence was a slight dip in the unbroken blanket of snow. Even her own pattern, normally so loud and aggressive in comparison to the elegantly uniform coats of the equines she met, was camouflaged by a thick blanket of snow that kept her warm despite the chilly air.

Quiet reigned supreme now that the storm had chased the normal residents of the darkened hours into their burrows and dens, and it pressed in possessively around her like an overly amorous lover. It reminded her, strangely, of the time when she had been pushed underwater by ocean waves so deeply that she'd been unable to separate up from down and had drifted, weightless, for a time; the oppressive quiet, so thick and endless that all she could hear was the sound of her own heartbeat, was inescapable.

If it wasn't so beautiful, she thought to herself ruefully, casting one sharp glance upward at the clearing sky, it'd probably be claustrophobic. However, the silence was peaceful for once. Normally her mind was too busy circling through the what-ifs and what-could-be's of life too settle in the absence of stimuli, but tonight she felt strangely at ease.

Even when her slowly acclimating gaze managed to pick out the figure of another creature in the gloom as the snowfall thinned, she did not feel the same normal rush of anxiety. Instead, she felt glad of having someone else with her to share in such an idyllic scene and after a moment's hesitation, nickered gently to them. She had no idea how long they had been standing there, or if they had even been aware of her presence before this moment, but now that she had noticed them, it felt odd to not acknowledge it. Like an awkward teen crossing the gymnasium floor to ask someone to dance at their first homecoming, Ingrid moved a few steps toward the figure so that they wouldn't be shouting through the gloom and then pointed with her muzzle toward a small hillock at the base of a tree.

"Do you think the ermine or fox will emerge first?" Her voice is hushed, and accompanied by a plume of water vapor that swirled into the air. She did not keep her eye on the figure, feeling that such a thing was somehow too intimate in this vacuum of existence, but kept one velvety black ear tuned keenly for their response.