Meadow

cw // mention of dead body

Her mother's body was cold to the touch, as it had been for days now. Sylvi drew her muzzle down the line of her jaw and stopped when the velvet of their mouths met. There was no breath there, of course, but Sylvi waited in that position as though it might come one last time. Her mother still smelled faintly of sweet grass, but the scent was being eclipsed by a heavier, fouler smell that lingered unpleasantly in Sylvi's nostrils.

Sylvi closed her eyes, but her cheeks remained dry. Even though grief strangled her throat, she could not find it in herself to let it out.

When she opened her eyes again, her mother was no longer a warm rosy color but black as sin. Sylvi drew her head back to look over the rest of her mother's body. Gone was the petite, stocky body; gone were the russet mane and tail that had fanned out around her like a dropped veil. In their place was a lean and muscled frame with bold white markings cutting across it like ice floes in a dark sea. Long white legs curled almost protectively about Sylvi, and insects crawled over what hair lay draped on the grass.

As Sylvi watched, trembling, the body raised its head and flashed a terrible grin at her. Humor and malice gleamed in its eyes. It was the stallion she'd met one cold, wet night last winter: the stallion who'd materialized out of the dark and tormented her till she snapped. She had hoped to never see him again, and here he was.

"Hello, little mouse," he said.

And then, abruptly, Sylvi was awake.

Soft moss and crushed leaves cushioned her reclined body. All around her, solemn trees watched like sentinels in the dark as moonlight filtered through their naked branches. It was utterly silent; there was not so much as a breath of wind. Sylvi's skin crawled with unease. She took a deep breath and the smells of earth and crisp autumn air filled her lungs, but beneath them slithered the scent of her mother's body, so cloying it felt real. Sorrow ripped through her and sat in her throat like a fist.

She rose and made for the edge of the woods, where a wide meadow stretched like a silver sea. The full moon was high and the stars put on quite a show; it must have been the middle of the night. Sylvi paused at the edge of the trees, searching for something, anything — and there it was. Another sleepless stranger, lingering at the edge of the meadow a short distance away. Sylvi watched them for a moment, assessing their body language, but their back was to her and they were half-hidden in deep shadow.

In the end her need for company outweighed any sense of caution. Sylvi picked through the grass toward the stranger, keeping the line of trees close to her flank in case she quickly needed to disappear. For a few moments the only sound in the entire meadow was her hooves crunching in the frost.

She whickered once she was close enough, keeping her head low and nonthreatening. "Good evening. I hope I'm not disturbing you, but — well, you know. It's one of those nights." She gave an exaggerated shiver, as though she was simply feeling the chill of the season.