Some might think it would be quiet in the wilderness where no one but they are passing through, but it is not quiet in the Taiga. The forest is alive with spring, birds trilling and fluttering, claiming their territories and their mates with bright songs and bright feathers. Just as bright is Popinjay, small and laughing and wild, dark eyes shining as she chases the finches as they swoop from tree to tree and tossing her head against the scolding brown wrens. One and a half years is an awkward age, less a child than before, and yet, not nearly an adult, others still begin to have <I>expectations</I> of behavior. It's not as acceptable these days to steal a feather from Lepis' wing, or to lead her little brother on a questionable journey. <I>She should know better.</I> The real problem is that <I>they</I> know better. Every day her companions grow, and grow more serious.
Well, Owin has always been serious.
It is harder to lead them along, though, to convince them to join her, racing madly through the woodland, chasing fog and fey, and so more and more, Popinjay is alone among the trees and the ferns. She does not fret, however, not here among the songbirds raucously celebrating the passing of another wicked, grey, winter. The smiling light filters golden and green between the bristling needles of redwood and larch, inciting a riot of squealing and bucking across a glowing glen, and as she charges through it, insects chirp and buzz and drift into the air, sparking bright and sharp in the haze.
But, oh! What was that? A soft chime catches her ear, faint and alluring, unlike the dry buzz of disturbed click-beetles. No, it is almost like the ringing of hard hooves on the ironstone that gathers in some of the low valleys, almost, and yet... The youth slows and turns, head high and small ears curling forward. Her black forelock is almost long enough to cover the broad star across her brow and fall messily into her eyes, but she blinks it away. She blinks and sees one golden spark flit away on an unlikely path, deeper, darker, one that leads away from sunshine, yet it shimmers still, inexplicably.
Popinjay does not think, but follows, heart alight. It is a tantalizing chase into the core of the wilderness, to places even she does not often stray. The birds here are quieter, shyer, they don't flaunt or fly but keep to the undergrowth, shadows within shadows, flickering. The woodthrush is here, and the black-throated warblers whisper their lazy calls. Here there is a sense of silence, of solemnity, laughter fades her from throat but not from the gleam of her eye, not from that part of her heart that loves anything that is mischievous and sly. Even here the filly does not feel out of place. She, too, is a shadow among shadows, her soft baby coat having shed out almost black, a cape of starless night sky blanketing the bright cherry bay of her belly and flanks.
Light flickers around the corner, calling, and as she has ever done, the yearling presses on into the black cavern of Taiga's heart. The sound of water dripping slowly echoes around her, droplets splashing on stone, dripping from leaf to leaf, trickling down darkened trunks. The ground is soft and smells strongly of earth and slow decay, her hooves sink deep into it, squelching softly, the liquid welling in each hoofprint tannic and opaque. There is no light here, the taunting, flickering, thing she followed is gone and before her, a doorway, foreboding and wrapping in vines. The mouth of a cave?
<I>Has that always been there?</I> Would she have any way of knowing? It looks as though it has existed for eons, and no light shows beyond its threshold, not a sound, not a scent. It could go anywhere. It could contain anything.
But Popinjay never hesitates. A door once orphaned her. A door once brought her here, to a world where magic was real and possible, where things still existed to be discovered. She hadn't hesitated then and she doesn't hesitate now.
Well, Owin has always been serious.
It is harder to lead them along, though, to convince them to join her, racing madly through the woodland, chasing fog and fey, and so more and more, Popinjay is alone among the trees and the ferns. She does not fret, however, not here among the songbirds raucously celebrating the passing of another wicked, grey, winter. The smiling light filters golden and green between the bristling needles of redwood and larch, inciting a riot of squealing and bucking across a glowing glen, and as she charges through it, insects chirp and buzz and drift into the air, sparking bright and sharp in the haze.
But, oh! What was that? A soft chime catches her ear, faint and alluring, unlike the dry buzz of disturbed click-beetles. No, it is almost like the ringing of hard hooves on the ironstone that gathers in some of the low valleys, almost, and yet... The youth slows and turns, head high and small ears curling forward. Her black forelock is almost long enough to cover the broad star across her brow and fall messily into her eyes, but she blinks it away. She blinks and sees one golden spark flit away on an unlikely path, deeper, darker, one that leads away from sunshine, yet it shimmers still, inexplicably.
Popinjay does not think, but follows, heart alight. It is a tantalizing chase into the core of the wilderness, to places even she does not often stray. The birds here are quieter, shyer, they don't flaunt or fly but keep to the undergrowth, shadows within shadows, flickering. The woodthrush is here, and the black-throated warblers whisper their lazy calls. Here there is a sense of silence, of solemnity, laughter fades her from throat but not from the gleam of her eye, not from that part of her heart that loves anything that is mischievous and sly. Even here the filly does not feel out of place. She, too, is a shadow among shadows, her soft baby coat having shed out almost black, a cape of starless night sky blanketing the bright cherry bay of her belly and flanks.
Light flickers around the corner, calling, and as she has ever done, the yearling presses on into the black cavern of Taiga's heart. The sound of water dripping slowly echoes around her, droplets splashing on stone, dripping from leaf to leaf, trickling down darkened trunks. The ground is soft and smells strongly of earth and slow decay, her hooves sink deep into it, squelching softly, the liquid welling in each hoofprint tannic and opaque. There is no light here, the taunting, flickering, thing she followed is gone and before her, a doorway, foreboding and wrapping in vines. The mouth of a cave?
<I>Has that always been there?</I> Would she have any way of knowing? It looks as though it has existed for eons, and no light shows beyond its threshold, not a sound, not a scent. It could go anywhere. It could contain anything.
But Popinjay never hesitates. A door once orphaned her. A door once brought her here, to a world where magic was real and possible, where things still existed to be discovered. She hadn't hesitated then and she doesn't hesitate now.
