hard to be soft, tough to be tender ;
The wind whistled through the meadow. She could hear it.
A soft cry.
A mewl.
Baby.
Yara lifts her head from the pale grass. Her stark blue eyes stare forward. She stalks forward, dark ears twitch and focus on the sound–
No, not a baby.
Something deeper. Ancient. Perhaps, she thinks, but isn’t everything ancient to someone who has only been alive three springs? Funny. She’s funny. Above the sky is silver, pregnant with clouds which block out the sun and leave the world colder than it should be. Yara stands still against the grass. She can feel it tickle across her kneecaps. The long muscle in her left shoulder shudders.
She had been born somewhere else but those memories are scattered. Her mother had been kind, she thinks but maybe not–it was hard to remember.
Being alone in such a big world sometimes felt like a weight too heavy to carry but then, well, there were birds.
A whole flock of them bursts up from the meadow floor into the air. Wings against the chill, feathers going in all directions. One floats towards Yara and lands against her nose. It smells like freedom. The young mare looks up at the birds and she wishes she could fly.
Fly away to somewhere she could belong.
But that meant being tied down.
Yara supposed being able to fly didn’t always mean being able to go wherever you wanted, you were also part of the flock (or murder, she reasoned). The little mare sighs, shaking her head to rid herself of the feather which falls into the grass.