11-16-2017, 10:17 PM
Zosma has always made her home in meadows and wide, reaching, rolling lands.
The colorful but fenced-in fields of España where she had been born. She remembers flying across the verdant green grass with such abandon, such zest. Her mother’s face had been bright, all the sharp angles lit under the unhindered Mediterranean sun. The wild and earthy prairies of the new world had come next. She had been lost and broken, but then rebuilt herself. She remembers both the highs and the lows, both the power and the powerlessness of her soul. The elysian kingdom of the Gates was last – a legend made real but not lessened for it. The sun had finally found her once again here. The wrongs were made right. She loved that kingdom too late and it disappeared out from under her feet.
Now, the pale woman lives like a vagabond. This role suits her, perhaps more than any other has before (obedient daughter, herd leader, citizen hopeful). She moves wherever the wind is sweet, whichever direction the trodden path does <i>not</i> lead. But one day, salt-brine mixes in heavily with the dogwood and lavender she has been trailing. She’s always resisted it, always left her ghosts firmly in the past of the new world long behind her. Today, it flits tantalizingly on her tongue and travels to her brain, where it orders her feet in a new direction. Zosma leaves the edge of the meadow she had been haunting and follows the scent. The moon is high in the heavens when she begins her mission, but it doesn’t matter long. When she takes her first step away from the open sky, the forest swallows her wholly into darkness.
The sea finds her after a time. It takes several days and too many miles to count, but she is a traveler and doesn’t mind the familiar aches. Once she faces the cerulean waves, though, she wonders why she’s come at all. The sun is here, at least. She closes her eyes against it, savoring its warmth against her weary skin. It is gone too quickly. The Spanish mare opens her eyes to the rushing darkness as the sun is blotted out by clouds. A wind kicks up from nowhere, and it is neither sweet nor a reminder of the world behind her. It is a cold tempest that pulls the brambles from her hair and tangles it further into knots. It is a force that seems to shake the sea as the waves rise ahead. They clap and clash against each other like titans; some waves suddenly reverse back to the horizon. <i>Then –</i>
<b>“Mom?”</b> Zosma breathes, her heart racing as she sees the figure. She’s there but not, can’t be. <b><i>GET AWAY</i></b> The woman in the water screams, her voice finding her daughter despite the tempest rising around them. A filly lunges out from another wave, her beautiful and completely dead sister with wide eyes and another warning. <i><b>GO NOW</b></i>. And she can’t help it. She steps into the water to follow them because the sea had almost killed them before. It hadn’t, in the end, but here they are anyway. Sea water sprays against her sides. A monstrous wave cuts through the gaunt faces of her mother and sister, and this one is not as welcome. <i>His</i> face is there. The wave pauses at the crest of its motion, enough that he can look down on her (like all the times he’d taken her underneath him). He sneers. <b><i>Run</i></b> . And it is not loud. The command, like the wave, hits her like a caress. <i>Soft and easy, baby.</i> And darkness follows.
--------------------------------------------------------
The first thing she notices is that she is alive.
Her lungs pull in sweet air once again. Her heart pumps and beats out its old melody, filling her grateful ears with its chorus. The sun pools itself in the small of her back and floods throughout her limbs, telling her to rise, rise, rise. She does, and every muscle feels the exertion of her doing so. Her coat had been plastered with salt and sea-wind and crinkles now that she’s moving.
The second thing she notices is that she is not alone.
Faces peer in from all around her landing spot on the beach. There are so many that she thinks she’s dreaming (still not sure she was ever awake to begin with, not since the otherworldly storm, anyway). She only believes she’s truly awake when one small colt reaches forward to bump his velveteen muzzle with her own and flesh meets flesh. <b>“I’m Koala! You are very pale, didja know?”</b> A kindly-looking mare pushes Koala out of the way. Her soft chestnut coat is filled out with the curves of a mother. <b>“Welcome to the Island, dear, and the family. The ocean is kind enough to bring us new faces such as yourself now and again. Come, we’ll show you around.”</b>
Zosma greets them all in turn. There’s Kiwi, a sabino mare. Tiger is a brindle stallion with fierce eyes. Baboon and Sloth, polar opposite brothers with blood bay coats. Caiman is an entrancing woman with cold blue eyes and a black, black body. Zosma appreciates everything about her. Emu is a yearling filly with endearing tufts of fur growing behind her ears. Python is a skinny, sickly-looking mare with a darting gaze. Tapir is a monochrome young mare without a tail.
The pale woman learns that Kangaroo is Koala’s mother. She learns that everyone on the island has woken up here, a stranger at first but family soon after. She learns the stories of the others, their lives before and after being stranded in paradise. She learns where to find clean water, where to wash herself in the safe creeks, where to find the meaty coconuts opened by gravity’s fall. She learns that the Island family does everything together including giving each other different names.
<b><i>“Which animal did you see first?”</i></b> Kangaroo asks her one night as they lay with their haunches touching. Zosma likes the fullness of the mare’s muscle against her own. She likes Kangaroo, the honey-brown of her eyes gilded like the sun. <b>“A dart frog,”</b> she says breathlessly against the sea air. Kangaroo brushes her lips against her ear. <b><i>“Dart to me, frog to the others then.”</i></b> Her laugh, like everything else about her, is gentle.
And they live like this, in paradise.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Until they don’t.
She wakes next to nothing and cries out.
<b>“Where is she? Where is ‘Roo?”</b> The others, all the horses with the names of the animals that surround them rush to her. They come with frantic faces and voices of concern, of disbelief. It had been hard to get here, but it was heaven on earth now. How could this happen?
There are tracks, but they are few and far between. It doesn’t matter. They set out altogether, and Zosma takes Koala by her side as her own. They ignore the beauty of their sanctuary, and scan the woods, the skies, the sea. She feels panic like a taut wire she is loath to pull on in her breast. Like before, she has lost something dear to her. Unlike before, she is not alone. They will find her, they have to. The ocean will not gain another face.
The colorful but fenced-in fields of España where she had been born. She remembers flying across the verdant green grass with such abandon, such zest. Her mother’s face had been bright, all the sharp angles lit under the unhindered Mediterranean sun. The wild and earthy prairies of the new world had come next. She had been lost and broken, but then rebuilt herself. She remembers both the highs and the lows, both the power and the powerlessness of her soul. The elysian kingdom of the Gates was last – a legend made real but not lessened for it. The sun had finally found her once again here. The wrongs were made right. She loved that kingdom too late and it disappeared out from under her feet.
Now, the pale woman lives like a vagabond. This role suits her, perhaps more than any other has before (obedient daughter, herd leader, citizen hopeful). She moves wherever the wind is sweet, whichever direction the trodden path does <i>not</i> lead. But one day, salt-brine mixes in heavily with the dogwood and lavender she has been trailing. She’s always resisted it, always left her ghosts firmly in the past of the new world long behind her. Today, it flits tantalizingly on her tongue and travels to her brain, where it orders her feet in a new direction. Zosma leaves the edge of the meadow she had been haunting and follows the scent. The moon is high in the heavens when she begins her mission, but it doesn’t matter long. When she takes her first step away from the open sky, the forest swallows her wholly into darkness.
The sea finds her after a time. It takes several days and too many miles to count, but she is a traveler and doesn’t mind the familiar aches. Once she faces the cerulean waves, though, she wonders why she’s come at all. The sun is here, at least. She closes her eyes against it, savoring its warmth against her weary skin. It is gone too quickly. The Spanish mare opens her eyes to the rushing darkness as the sun is blotted out by clouds. A wind kicks up from nowhere, and it is neither sweet nor a reminder of the world behind her. It is a cold tempest that pulls the brambles from her hair and tangles it further into knots. It is a force that seems to shake the sea as the waves rise ahead. They clap and clash against each other like titans; some waves suddenly reverse back to the horizon. <i>Then –</i>
<b>“Mom?”</b> Zosma breathes, her heart racing as she sees the figure. She’s there but not, can’t be. <b><i>GET AWAY</i></b> The woman in the water screams, her voice finding her daughter despite the tempest rising around them. A filly lunges out from another wave, her beautiful and completely dead sister with wide eyes and another warning. <i><b>GO NOW</b></i>. And she can’t help it. She steps into the water to follow them because the sea had almost killed them before. It hadn’t, in the end, but here they are anyway. Sea water sprays against her sides. A monstrous wave cuts through the gaunt faces of her mother and sister, and this one is not as welcome. <i>His</i> face is there. The wave pauses at the crest of its motion, enough that he can look down on her (like all the times he’d taken her underneath him). He sneers. <b><i>Run</i></b> . And it is not loud. The command, like the wave, hits her like a caress. <i>Soft and easy, baby.</i> And darkness follows.
--------------------------------------------------------
The first thing she notices is that she is alive.
Her lungs pull in sweet air once again. Her heart pumps and beats out its old melody, filling her grateful ears with its chorus. The sun pools itself in the small of her back and floods throughout her limbs, telling her to rise, rise, rise. She does, and every muscle feels the exertion of her doing so. Her coat had been plastered with salt and sea-wind and crinkles now that she’s moving.
The second thing she notices is that she is not alone.
Faces peer in from all around her landing spot on the beach. There are so many that she thinks she’s dreaming (still not sure she was ever awake to begin with, not since the otherworldly storm, anyway). She only believes she’s truly awake when one small colt reaches forward to bump his velveteen muzzle with her own and flesh meets flesh. <b>“I’m Koala! You are very pale, didja know?”</b> A kindly-looking mare pushes Koala out of the way. Her soft chestnut coat is filled out with the curves of a mother. <b>“Welcome to the Island, dear, and the family. The ocean is kind enough to bring us new faces such as yourself now and again. Come, we’ll show you around.”</b>
Zosma greets them all in turn. There’s Kiwi, a sabino mare. Tiger is a brindle stallion with fierce eyes. Baboon and Sloth, polar opposite brothers with blood bay coats. Caiman is an entrancing woman with cold blue eyes and a black, black body. Zosma appreciates everything about her. Emu is a yearling filly with endearing tufts of fur growing behind her ears. Python is a skinny, sickly-looking mare with a darting gaze. Tapir is a monochrome young mare without a tail.
The pale woman learns that Kangaroo is Koala’s mother. She learns that everyone on the island has woken up here, a stranger at first but family soon after. She learns the stories of the others, their lives before and after being stranded in paradise. She learns where to find clean water, where to wash herself in the safe creeks, where to find the meaty coconuts opened by gravity’s fall. She learns that the Island family does everything together including giving each other different names.
<b><i>“Which animal did you see first?”</i></b> Kangaroo asks her one night as they lay with their haunches touching. Zosma likes the fullness of the mare’s muscle against her own. She likes Kangaroo, the honey-brown of her eyes gilded like the sun. <b>“A dart frog,”</b> she says breathlessly against the sea air. Kangaroo brushes her lips against her ear. <b><i>“Dart to me, frog to the others then.”</i></b> Her laugh, like everything else about her, is gentle.
And they live like this, in paradise.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Until they don’t.
She wakes next to nothing and cries out.
<b>“Where is she? Where is ‘Roo?”</b> The others, all the horses with the names of the animals that surround them rush to her. They come with frantic faces and voices of concern, of disbelief. It had been hard to get here, but it was heaven on earth now. How could this happen?
There are tracks, but they are few and far between. It doesn’t matter. They set out altogether, and Zosma takes Koala by her side as her own. They ignore the beauty of their sanctuary, and scan the woods, the skies, the sea. She feels panic like a taut wire she is loath to pull on in her breast. Like before, she has lost something dear to her. Unlike before, she is not alone. They will find her, they have to. The ocean will not gain another face.