05-31-2019, 06:49 PM
Torryn had been awake for hours when the image of the meadow came to him in the early morning.
It took longer for daylight to break through the trees of the thick forest that he lived in, and so even when the sky first began to brighten, it was hours later before the sun was high enough to penetrate the darkness. It had become a habit for him to wake up long before the sun did, and this was when he would slip away. Perhaps this was how his mother’s wanderlust chose to display itself. Even though he only knew the Briseis that stayed in Taiga — the Briseis that was tethered so fiercely to his father, and their family — he had grown on the stories of her travels. They were fascinating, but he never felt the urge to act.
Early morning, however, when his parents and his siblings still slept, is when he would carefully steal away from the shadow-nest crafted by his father. The rare moment that everyone was asleep was the only chance he had to himself. With an entire tribe of shadowed siblings, he was the outcast in more ways than one, even if his parents didn’t see him like that. He loved all of his brothers and sisters, but it didn’t change the fact that he was the only one that didn’t look like them (with the blue roan coat, when everyone else was black as the shadows they controlled), and that he couldn’t do any of the things they could. Misfit was similar to himself, but he was so close to Haunt that he might as well have been just like the rest of the shadow-kids.
He is at the edge of Taiga when the image of a meadow invades his mind, and he cannot ignore the intense feeling of needing to <I>go</I> that becomes so deeply embedded in his veins. He wonders if this is what his mother had meant; how that need to leave had been like an instinct that just seemed wrong to ignore. He glances back in the direction that would take him back to his family, and then looks again to the border.
And for the first time in his year of life, he decides to cross it.
He has no idea where he actually needs to go, but the picture of the meadow is so fervent that it serves as a guiding star of sorts. It pushes and pulls him in different directions, across rocky paths and winding streams, through groves of trees and over sloping hills. He tries to take it all in, but anytime he is tempted to stop, that same image continues to beckon him.
The blue roan colt crests the top of a knoll, and there he sees the pink mare, and a small gathering of horses. For a moment, he feels a flinch of uncertainty, but he pushes it aside as he approaches the group, casting the others a brief glance. He is drawn to her, though, like a magnet, and even though he says nothing, his dark brown eyes are locked to her face in anticipation of what she would tell them.
It took longer for daylight to break through the trees of the thick forest that he lived in, and so even when the sky first began to brighten, it was hours later before the sun was high enough to penetrate the darkness. It had become a habit for him to wake up long before the sun did, and this was when he would slip away. Perhaps this was how his mother’s wanderlust chose to display itself. Even though he only knew the Briseis that stayed in Taiga — the Briseis that was tethered so fiercely to his father, and their family — he had grown on the stories of her travels. They were fascinating, but he never felt the urge to act.
Early morning, however, when his parents and his siblings still slept, is when he would carefully steal away from the shadow-nest crafted by his father. The rare moment that everyone was asleep was the only chance he had to himself. With an entire tribe of shadowed siblings, he was the outcast in more ways than one, even if his parents didn’t see him like that. He loved all of his brothers and sisters, but it didn’t change the fact that he was the only one that didn’t look like them (with the blue roan coat, when everyone else was black as the shadows they controlled), and that he couldn’t do any of the things they could. Misfit was similar to himself, but he was so close to Haunt that he might as well have been just like the rest of the shadow-kids.
He is at the edge of Taiga when the image of a meadow invades his mind, and he cannot ignore the intense feeling of needing to <I>go</I> that becomes so deeply embedded in his veins. He wonders if this is what his mother had meant; how that need to leave had been like an instinct that just seemed wrong to ignore. He glances back in the direction that would take him back to his family, and then looks again to the border.
And for the first time in his year of life, he decides to cross it.
He has no idea where he actually needs to go, but the picture of the meadow is so fervent that it serves as a guiding star of sorts. It pushes and pulls him in different directions, across rocky paths and winding streams, through groves of trees and over sloping hills. He tries to take it all in, but anytime he is tempted to stop, that same image continues to beckon him.
The blue roan colt crests the top of a knoll, and there he sees the pink mare, and a small gathering of horses. For a moment, he feels a flinch of uncertainty, but he pushes it aside as he approaches the group, casting the others a brief glance. He is drawn to her, though, like a magnet, and even though he says nothing, his dark brown eyes are locked to her face in anticipation of what she would tell them.