Falls

In the deep of the forest, darkness consumed all.

As she strayed deeper, the world was reduced to skeins of shadow that Mirri’s sight could not hope to unravel. After a time, she learned to stop trying and even began to shutter her gaze against it. Eyes open or closed, it made no difference. The blackness behind her pale lids matched that which surrounded her. It was only through her other senses that the filly managed to ’see’ at all: the frigid currents of air that flowed over her skin. The scents of moist earth and decaying wood, beneath which were buried the fainter trails of her kind. The dry crunch of leaves beneath her hooves — a sound that seemed strangely flat, as if the shadows formed a thick woolen blanket that covered her ears as well as her eyes.

Yielding to impulse, the ghost-white girl paused and tossed her hard sharply — just the same as she would do to dislodge a predator’s grasp. It was only darkness (darkness and death) that held her, however, and no amount of fighting could win her her freedom. (She’d won it before, recoiling wildly from the black demon wearing a bone-mask, but this time she was helpless. This time she—) Mirri’s pale ears twitched forward, quivering, and her dark eyes flew open. Forgetting the tangled web of her thoughts — forgetting that she couldn’t see — the slender youth tripped eagerly forward again. Roots rose hungrily to try and swallow her limbs, and claw-like branches snatched at the ashen tendrils of her mane. But she did not feel the warm trickle of blood down one leg, or the sharp pain of hairs torn out by their roots.

Her senses were given to something else. Something greater.

It was a few minutes before the foal’s frantic pace slowed. By then, the whispers she’d chased had turned into the soft, sobbing cries of a creature in distress. Head tilting gently to one side (in a gesture reminiscent of her dam, though there was no way for her to know), Mirri crept forward, placing each hoof carefully in the dry bracken before she lifted the next. Whatever waited for her where the forest thinned ahead, the weanling filly didn’t want to startle it. Not before she could see.

With quiet strides, the ghost-child emerged from between the trees. Blinking furiously — the moon’s soft silver glow was blinding after the oblivion she’d known — she let her gaze flit about the clearing. There, at its far edge. A pale silhouette amidst the jumble of rocks; a beacon almost as bright as the girl herself. Drifting forward again, Mirri approached the small creature. And then looked down at it with the open wonder of a child, the tight tension of her body ebbing until a curious peace took its place.

The hare — having shed its brown autumn coat a few weeks too soon — found itself marked as easy prey for one of the Crossing’s vulpine population. Only the arrival of a greater predator turned its poor fortunes… and then not enough to spare its life. Though the fox dropped its meal and fled quickly from the challenging wolves, its sharp teeth had already severed an artery in the hare’s neck. The exertion of its panicked flight stole the last remnants of its strength. It had finally surrendered to exhaustion beside a small, softly-murmuring stream. It was nearly gone.

Mirri’s lips were slightly parted as she watched the life fade from the small creature’s eyes. Her chest hitched with the shallow panting of her breath, and a quiver trailed down the length of her spine. She’d witnessed the same on her arrival into this world: the abrupt slackening of muscles. The heavy stillness and silence that hung in the air like an unanswered question. Over the hours that followed, the dark woman’s body had grown stiff and cold, and Mirri wondered whether the hare’s would too. She nudged the small figure tentatively with her muzzle, feeling the warm flesh yield beneath her touch. Not yet. Perhaps this one was different?

It was too soon to know. She would have to wait here, and keep watch.

She had to know — though exactly why this mystery was so important to her, the girl could not have begun to say.