[open] tomorrow is a long time - dawn, any

[Thia]

T H I A  She knew she’d been noticed, but she didn’t yet pull her attention from the sinking sun.  This place was nothing like her former home - all cliffs and mountains that belched sulfuric gasses. The air here was clear, with only the salt of the sea hanging in the air.  By the time Thia finally diverted her attention, she could clearly identify the shape of Dawn.  She was pleased that the girl - very much a woman now - still called this place home.  “I never forgot how you described this place,” she said, quietly, in lieu of pleasantries.  She turns towards the other mare as a shadow of a smile flickered upon her lips.   Part of her wants to apologize. She feels that Dawn is perhaps entitled to know how she had been equal parts overwhelmed and terrified upon her arrival in the Field. She wants to explain how much she appreciated Dawn’s kindness, but how she feared walking into the unknown. How she feared that her ignorance would have her walking back into the chains that once bound her.  Her entire life she’d wanted nothing more than a life of her own. She dreamed of what it was like to be free.  It was the sole motivating factor in her escape - the single thread of hope she’d clung to for so long.  What she hadn’t considered, perhaps foolishly, is that freedom was an adjustment. She had to learn how to live without her shackles. That adjustment was a work in progress, and near-impossible to explain to those who had never been deprived their freedom.  “I wondered for a long time if it was even possible to settle here - not just in the Cove but in Beqanna, as a whole,” she says. It is not the lengthy explanation she’d considered - but it is something to offer the gold mare.   “I think I’d like to try, if you’ll have me.”  image credit

@[Dawn]