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After her encounter with Tyr and Vadim and Roisin, Djuna had thought it best to leave the Crossing. She moved south, skirting around the Commons and eventually plunging into the ocean to see where the tides would carry her. Southward she went until she touched hoof on a pristine beach, white sand stretching out on either side and a lush green jungle rising up before her. She traveled along the beach until she discovered the yawning mouth of a river, and next to it a worn trail. Djuna paused for a moment, considering her options. The promise of adventure and the sounds of the jungle eventually lured her in. Her sense of curiosity was piqued by the winding trail that disappeared between the vine-covered trees and the distant melody of exotic songbirds. The afternoon sun filtered between the swaying branches, speckling the ground with dancing light. She wasn't sure exactly where she was, or whose home she might have wandered into, but found herself oddly at ease as she followed the trail through the jungle, her mind wandering as her hooves carried her further. For hours she walked through the forest, morning turning to afternoon and the temperature climbing until a thin layer of sweat glistened on her coat. But onward she went. Eventually the river that flanked the trail turned to a stream and the stream turned to a trickle before disappearing among the rocks and roots of the forest floor. Still she continued, until a small flash of movement ahead caught her attention. As she drew closer she realized it was a mouse. The little creature spun around and around, looping in an endless circle like a carousel horse. Djuna tutted sympathetically at it, staring down at the helpless thing as it continued to twirl mindlessly away. Something must've happened to it, she figured, to make it act so oddly. She wondered if it was in pain, or if it knew something was wrong. The thought made her mouth twist into a deep frown and her heart clench painfully inside her chest. Would it be less cruel to simply end its suffering here and now? To press her hoof against its body until its spine gives and its world goes blessedly dark? Or is it better to let nature take its course, to claim the mouse's life at its own pace? Another flash of movement further along distracts her from her moral dilemma, emerald eyes lifting. "I found it like this," she explains to the approaching figure, sadness in her tone as she turns her focus back to the still spinning mouse. "Poor thing. What should we do?" |
| child tell me how you feel just a blade in the grass, a spoke unto the wheel |