The palomino mare stands at the edge of the water, her pale eyes on the distant horizon. The flowers that bloom around her hooves add a sweet scent to the warm salt air, a perfume so familiar that the horned queen rarely notices it. Not so the presence of the flowers, growing from sprout to fluorescence in only moments wherever she sets her hooves, even in the shallow water and sand of the shore upon which she stands.
The magic of them is in her crown, the vining greenery that twists about Myrna’s own spiraling horns. The blossoming kingdom is reflected in the crown, or perhaps the kingdom mirrors the crown. She recalls discovering it, and it is that she thinks of as she watches dark clouds gather over the summer sea. A thunderstorm is coming.
The wind that brings in the storm tugs at Myrna’s white mane, which is unadorned now, though once she had rarely been seen without flowers of her own woven in. She is no longer the young mare that had first claimed the crown, though her pale coat hides the silvering of her hair, and her immortality, healing, and the presence of a magical waterfall that heals all ills make for a potent anti-aging blend.
It is the children that had made her feel her age, Myrna thinks, her mind turning to the twins Ravin and Luvi. They’re growing quickly, and Ravin - the bolder - has been venturing away from the Gates. How long will they stay, she wonders? She wants it to be forever, the way that Luvi says it will be, but she also knows that there is infinite time for change in the future. Someday, Luvi might want to leave. Someday Ravin might want to go to.
Does she want to go, Myrna wonders?
Is she still happy here?
She is content and safe and at peace here in the Gates.
But Happy?
In the depths of her heart, Mynra knows that it is not the Gates that is the issue. This is something within her, something that will not be mended by a change in location. She sighs, not wanting to think of that, and turns back in toward the heart of the kingdom. The storm will be on them within a few hours, so she is not especially quick as she wanders along well worn paths, her blue-grey eyes seeking company.
She dozes most often in holes left by animals who forage for the summer, curling her small body into the grooves the bears and badgers left behind as she settles into her own lonesome slumber. With her thumb gently covering the button of time, Lillia feels moons slipping by in seconds, watches its silvery face waxing and waning to the rhythm of her slow, dormant breath. In winter months when the animals return for their own sleep, the would-be predators soften at the embrace of Lillia's angelic aura. More often than not, the beasts, stinking of sweat and excess, make room for themselves alongside the angel. Lillia smiles in her suspended dream state during those months. When she twitches and wriggles, she enjoys the warmth and comfort of the unsentient beings who flock around her.
Today, a summer storm brews on the horizon, and Lillia slows the speed of her temporal cycling to admire the burgeoning clouds. Dark grey and pregnant with rain. As the first roll of thunder echoes into this land in which she loiters, her skin erupts in goose-prickles, further jostling her from her sleep. A lovely storm, she muses, her first clear thought in years. I wouldn't mind watching.
With an enormous exhale entirely disproportionate to her small frame, Lillia tenses all her muscles and feels her pale pink skin stretching and moving with a great stiffness, though not one she bemoans. She welcomes the pains of awakening, blinking her pale blue eyes against the "light" of the incoming storm. As her nostrils begin to flutter to pick up the fresh scent of the incoming storm, the wind sweeps up her mane and forelock in a frenzy, masking her vision as a similarly pale mare makes her unknowing approach.
"Oh," Lillia breathes, her voice, though unused, its usual high-pitched lilt. "Hello there!" She speaks the word to the white, horse-shaped entity before her, laying as she is with all four of her legs stretched at odd angles, neck streeetching and nose quivering, eyes upturned beneath a haze of tangled hair. Lillia flutters her wings to wake them up from a numbing sleep. "I hope you don't mind my making nice with the beasts of your land. They have such comfortable burrows..."
Myrna
suffocate the fire i started--------------------
right when it kindles
At the sound of a voice, Myrna’s eyes dart like lightning from the gathering storm, flashing down to the small equine that lies in her path, one who is half obscured by the grass through which she pushes.
“Hello,” she replies. The queen’s immediate smile is impeccable, and it reaches her eyes when she realizes this is a small adult, not another stranger’s child abandoned in the flowers. Why the other mare is lying on the dirt is not immediately clear, and Myrna tilts her head curiously as she takes the other in, her pale ears turning at the mention of burrows.
“You’ve been in the burrows?” She asks, and despite her incredulous tone, her mouth turns up in a fondly reminiscent smile. That does explain the dirt, the palomino mare decides, and why she’s not come across this stranger before. “And the animals don’t mind?”
It has been some time since she’d explored a burrow, but Myrna remembers the resident being rather displeased. It had been a wolverine though, and they tend to be displeased about nearly everything.
@Lillia
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Hello, the stranger replies, and Lillia cannot help but to mirror the mare's beautiful, sincere smile. The ingenuity of the moment makes Lillia's angel heart ache for home - heaven. Suddenly breathless and unwilling to let this kindred moment pass, Lillia lays her mind on the thread of time and weighs it down, slowing it so that seconds pass between the beating of their hearts. In this suspension Lillia admires the crinkles of the mare's eyes and the way her lips quiver almost imperceptibly at the height of their smile. Her rapture prevents her from considering her own countenance and how it might be perceived in this slowness. Legs askew, face hair-strewn, halo practically hanging on by a thread. And yet, that is the beauty of a serendipitous meeting of kindred spirits, is it not? That one finds another in her utmost self-expression, and loves her for it from the start.
At last, she releases time.
A friend is she, the angel decides.
So, she listens and laughs at her friend's incredulous tone whilst shaking her mane and ridding her face of its iridescent pink locks. It's during her friend's second question that she heaves to her hooves. There, she gives her whole body a shake, releasing a poof of dust into the air much as any horse might after a trusty roll. Despite this remediation, her coat remains dull with detritus. She doesn't mind.
"Well, minding doesn't really cross the creatures, well, minds when they come upon me in their burrows..." She pauses, mouth narrowly agape as she digests what she's just said. With a small harrumph, she tries again. "What I mean is, most simple creatures feel soothed in my presence. It's a side effect of my nature." She tosses her head to gesture to her halo, a sheepish (or is it impish?) tilt to her smile. "But I must say, I did have quite the fright when a mother bear used one paw to swipe me across her den. Just when I thought I was done for, she slide her two cubs right into me and curled up around all three of us. That was a cozy, if smelly, winter."
She ends the tale with a trill of laughter, her eyes squeezing shut as she raises her dished head, the sound of her mirth mingling with the wind in sweet harmony. At laughter's end, she inhales deeply, then exhales, and at last opens her still-smiling eyes again upon her friend.
"I am the angel Lillia. What might I call you, Golden-Smile?"
Myrna
suffocate the fire i started--------------------
right when it kindles
Her lightning is the first indication that something has changed. Instead of a brief touch, the miniature bolt travels from her elbow to her shoulder and tickles the entire way, her pale hair standing on end in a way that she had never had the literal time to notice before. She will marvel at that later, when she realizes.
Her little companion does not seem alarmed about what is happening, and what Myrna finds in her expression in the time that they pause together is the very same that Lilia is feeling.
Friendship.
The world begins to move normally once more, and Myrna gives her friend space to shake, what little space she needs.
An angel, she says, and Myrna’s golden smile is reminiscent now. She has heard tales of angels. That Lilia embodies all of them is no surprise, Myrna thinks as she chuckles at the image - and smells - that her friend’s story paints.
“I’m Myrna.” she replies. “And it is so very wonderful to meet you, Lillia.”
@Lillia
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I'm Myrna, she replies, And it is so very wonderful to meet you, Lillia.
"Myrna Golden-Smile," Lillia affirms with a nod of her shapely head. "The name suits you beautifully. Shall we walk? It has been ages since I last had a companion to walk with."
As the other mare makes as to continue along the well-worn paths of this land, Lillia falls in beside her, her smaller legs working time and a half to keep up. The pace gives the small horse a jauntiness to her step, her halo and the feathers of her wings bobbing up-and-down, up-and-down.
"Have you lived here long, Myrna? And... you wouldn't happen to know where here is, would you? Hm! I haven't quite had the time to learn the layout of your earthly kingdoms just yet."
As she speaks, the first wisps of grey cloud overhead let down a drop or two of cool rain. The wind picks up and the storm rolls closer. Lillia allows her wings to unfurl just so, enjoying the way the breeze ruffles her flight feathers. And she might offer a hop or two to catch the slightest of airtime, an action which seems almost subconscious, an exercise of her ability in tiny, joyous abandon.
Myrna
suffocate the fire i started--------------------
right when it kindles
Myrna Golden-Smile, the angel replies, and the namesake reappears.
To the idea of a walk, the mare nods, the gesture dislodging a katydid perched within her crown. They carry on down the path that she’d been taking in from the sea, broad and well-worn into the earth of the Gates. Though Myrna has no inherent halo of her own, the magic of the floral crown she wears weaves ever more blossoms along their path.
Her companion passes beneath a newly grown wisteria that Myrna lowers her head to avoid. She’s almost successful, but a few of the purple blossoms join the riotous mass upon her head, torn loose by one pointed horn. She pauses just a moment to dislodge them, her ears pricking forward to catch the question Lilia asks.
“I have,” she replies, yet finds as she tries to count the years they slip away as quickly as the wisteria. Her children are grown, no longer a measure, and each year is much the same.
“This is the Gates,” Myrna answers as the wind begins to pick up. “There are other lands, I know, but I’ve not seen many of them. I prefer it here.” And who wouldn’t, she thinks as she looks over the rolling autumn hills, still liberally colored with late-blooming flowers.That she’d most prefer to step into the flowers and disappear, she does not speak that aloud. Not when a cold drop of rain splatters long her blazed nose, the sensation sending a shiver down her spine.
“Race you to the Mother Tree?” She asks her companion as they round a hill and the tall tree comes into view. The rumble of thunder echoes around them, and the patter of rain behind them grows louder. They won’t escape the rain entirely, but if they can make it to the shelter of the tree they’ll at least avoid the worst.
@Lillia
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