Terran
Ander was growing older, Jinju … she’d always been independent. It’s blissful to watch over them in these troubled days, but in the moments when I’m not keeping an aerial eye on the two I somehow manage to catch blips of time where I can still get around to personal wishes. For my own sake, I’ve avoided the meadow - what good could come of being there? Every interaction I’ve had the chance of casually starting takes me back to the first day that I’d met Jinju, the day when my wings had finally sprouted and we’d laughed in shocked amazement over the scene.
I can still remember the candor of her personality, how it struck a chord deep within and allowed me (for perhaps the first time) to open my eyes to a life I was wasting all those years before.
Here I am, though, full circle from where I began and gliding without much thought over the expanse of open grassland. From below, I imagine that I seem nothing more than a simple black speck, outlined every now and then by the glint of sunlight striking my wings. It never bothers me, the separation from earth, because to me the rest of the creatures below all seem like ants too. “The grass is never greener.” I muse, shifting into a downwind gust before banking left in a wide circle.
When my gilded hooves strike earth, I’m jolted back into a memory by the happenstance of glancing across to a familiar shape. Overhead, I had thought the two horses meandering by the boulder had been acquaintances - but as I peer with narrowed, amber eyes I can see the opposite stands. Neither are interacting, yet, but the black mare seems somehow … “Titanya.”
The name seizes me by the throat, cuts off my air supply while I struggle to maintain a sense of normalcy. I’m staring at her, not willing to believe it even as my footsteps guide me closer. “So long .. too long.” I think, “Could it be? Maybe her daughter…”
My heart trips. “Titanya?” I call out once I’ve neared them. Feverish anxiety halts me, I tuck my wings like a crushed-gold cape across my back and glance nervously again to the Bay stallion, adding a nod if he should happen to look. “It’s me - Terran.” I offer, clinging to the bare threaded hope that she might recognize me, too.
“Let it be her, please.”
All around these golden beacons, I see nothing but black