dancing in the dark; any

[sequoia]

She knew this forest well. Most parts of it that is. Like where the hickory tree grew beside which her two mothers often met and she had been born beneath. Or the green scummed pond her mother usually stared into, waiting for it to offer up something that Sequoia in her short life had yet to understand. But she suspected that there were parts of the forest that even she did not know about despite her two mothers’ teachings.  Some things are best left in the dark... To be discovered. No one owned the forest and the concept of territory was foreign to her as she idled amongst her unnaturally grown daisies. They weren’t even her favorite flower necessarily - just one that seemed cheery enough to accompany her this dreary autumn day. So it never occurred to her as she dropped her bay head amongst their pale sweetness, that she was a trespasser here. All she could smell besides the daisies and herself was the shuddering thickness of leaf fall and decay.  Once she raised her head back up, she had the queerest sensation of being watched - no, not so much watched as stalked, as if she had somehow become the sort of prey that realizes it is prey way too late to do anything about it. It didn’t help that the smell of decay had grown infinitely stronger and fresher which was indicative of a corpse. Her nostrils wrinkled in instinctive distaste and she nearly plunged her nose back into the daisies just to inhale something sweet and alive. The daisies stood forgotten at her feet as she turned at lady to meet the smell of autumn and rot head on - - For the longest time, it was the strangest stand off between two horses or one horse and an almost-horse. She wasn’t quite sure what she faced because it looked as if it was crafted of twigs and leaves. Plus it held some unfortunate creature in its mouth that oozed flesh and fluid down the front of what she presumed was once a more equine neck and chest. She tilted her own head to one side as a mix of fascination and revulsion sculpted expression after expression on her face.  It made the first move, distracting her as the carcass swayed in its mouth and her trail of daisies began to wither away. Sequoia almost wanted to make the assumption that it was male from the very forward way it moved but held back momentarily from thinking that if so, it’d mean her no harm. She’d been told about the opposite sex but only in how to utilize them to fit her needs and desires and Sequoia did not think much of herself in that regard yet - or at all. But with each dying daisy, she sank her power into the earth and pulled up a small but growing barrier of nettles to possibly slow the thing down if its intentions proved other than friendly.  Sequoia recognized her own dumb desire to give this unique beast the benefit of the doubt because it - him? - intrigued her. She thought she ought to have been more shocked that the bits of fleshy filament dangling from creature-corpse and mouth did not further repulse her than it initially had but it was the ability to negate her daisies and own inherent power that kept her rooted to the spot. Enough to even make her open her mouth and be the first to break the quiet between them, “Hello.” SEQUOIA to be, and be nothing but light in the dark

Ah so thrilled to be interacting with Etojo! Big fan of him! <3