Once一
(that is where the stories start, she thinks, once)
But her own story was painted in so many colors. Once, twice ….
Lyubov squints against the sun. Her eyes burn with salt. She has been a daughter for too long and now, on the shores of this strange place, she can be whatever Lyubov desires.
When the stranger comes near, she gives him a side-eyed glance. He is unlike the Members. He has something about him that makes her tremble. Lyubov continues her steady pace. Delicate hooves leaving equally delicate prints. Sand sticks to the long, leanness of her legs.
And then he tilts his face, his chin like a marker一oh! She thinks, this was the color Gold she remembered from her foal-hood. She notes the reflective streaks of his silvery mane and tosses her own.
Her gait changes,
The low, rough tumble of legs and hooves. She stretches out her thin face, her ears laying back against her skinny neck. Lyubov pushes forward, accepting his challenge of a race. Her hooves dig up sand, throwing it up around her belly and into the stream of her paltry tail.
But it feels good.
It feels like being alive.
lyubov