Meadow

Darkness is safe. The thought sprung unbidden as lids were lifted to reveal blood-tinted eyes set within the pale façade. The first rays of sunshine were staining the night sky, chasing the night away to welcome and most unwelcomed new day. Her breath came out in huffs of steam on the cold air, her previously relaxed body gone rigid with realization. She no longer lay frigid and frozen from the icy waters that had carried her here, but now a new set of problems presented themselves. She curled closer to the rough bark of the tree she camped beneath and morosely pulled her head up to survey the strange new place she would be calling home. It's no so bad... Her inner monologue muttered, perhaps forgetting for a moment that new places meant new people and new people were risky

She snorted, trying hard to regain some of her old optimism. Lenore had grown so very used to the comforts of her solitary existence in the forest an ocean away. Could she find a place here that offered her the same peace? Doubt tugged at the fringe of her mind and she shook it off with a twitch of her withers a tip of her small head. She was doomed to be perpetually negative, for her life hadn't exactly given her reason to expect anything else. She forced herself upward, shaking the wild strands of hair from her neck, despite the morning dews attempt to bind it down. She drank in the smell of the morning air and tried with all her might to appear confidant in her decision to escape her old lands. After all, it wasn't as if anyone would come after her. Her old herd was long gone and those she had come across had shown only contempt for her lineage. She had started to wonder if perhaps they knew something she didn't.

Like what? Stop assuming that everyone is probably correct in their judgements. Light laughter sprung from her lips. It didn't matter how often she chastised herself for believing there was something wrong with her, she always fell back on it, for it was easier than believing that her mother would abandon her over something as trivial as her appearance. As hard as she tried, any fledgling tidbit of optimism that wriggled it's way into her mind would die a painful death on the precipice of the self-loathing she'd carefully honed over her short life. With that thought, she lost interest in her own musings and began ambling her way toward a creek she'd spied. Despite the chill in the air, her first inclination was to submerge as much of herself as she could. She gingerly dipped a leg in and audibly sighed as it shocked her nerves and quickly rid her of any lingering vestiges of sleep. She slowly followed that first step with a few more, until her entire body was in the water. She dipped her lips and drank the cold liquid greedily. When was the last time she'd had a drink? Her dry throat seemed to cry out for sustenance the same way her aching muscles had for rest the night before.

For a moment she existed in the need to survive and all of her past and the predicament of her current situation fell away. She could live like this, she mused. She could live simply to lap the cold water and muse idly to herself each morning. She could continue existing just to watch the stars fill the night sky and to pretend that someone, somewhere, was watching those same stars and feeling exactly the way she felt. She could pretend that she didn't feel utterly alone and forgotten in this world. She could be a creature of the wilderness, for she'd learned a long time ago just how easy it was to be lonely.