Rey
The territory is unusually quiet. Night approaches. Winter, which has stripped nearly every limb in Beqanna free of leaves, trickles through the everlasting red-gold canopy and deposits thick flakes of snow. The white tufts of frozen water dissolve over my warm skin, kept hot because I’m shambling in discomfort. Something inside my belly feels like tainted rot. It refuses to let me sleep peacefully, so I give in and walk.
Slush, slush, slush, my hoofsteps crunch, echoed by a similarly disgusting slush, slush, slush at the center of my hindgut. If I ignore the sounds altogether perhaps they might go away.
Or perhaps your baby is dead, a forbidden thought creeps around my head. Around and around … ring-a-ring o’ roses, a pocket full o’ posies.
Ashes to ashes, we all fall down.
“Those aren’t the lyrics!” I hiss at myself, the only company I’ve got in the wide, snow-laden forest. A few racking coughs follow suit, clear of blood. I must be healing, I know that somehow I’m immune, so these thoughts of dead children and silly rhymes need to go, before they take my sanity with them. A sigh of composure passes over my tongue and I think of them - the like-minded horses who called me to action in Icicle Isle - and I wonder if I can focus enough on my power to teleport me directly to one or another of them.
I picture the horned one: the great beast with a tawny coat, and then I close my eyes.
Nothing.
“Fairies above … I'll die before I figure this shit out.” I huff in a raspy curse. It leaves me with no choice but to slush along. If I’m a lucky, naughty girl someday they just might find me.
Wanna step to me better think twice, 'cause I look pretty but I ain't that nice
@[Bruise] a gift for you