04-15-2026, 04:04 PM
His legs grow longer, muscles stronger, this second chance at life making a man out of him once more. The growth spurts make him sore. A yearling now, gangly and uncouth, he stands at fifteen hands high and finds little joy in his youth. The pangs of dull memory make every moment a guess. What's this? Who am I? A life-size game of chess. Waking moments camouflage as dreaming, and in his sleep Limb feels himself reeling, from present to past and morosely to the future, wondering: will this happen again? Is another rebirth just around the bend? And if so, how old am I, really? There is no proof that this is but my second life, clearly...
He might benefit from Abrus' reasons; to see memory loss as fated, not treason.
How lucky, then, that he stumbles upon the fellow, standing as he is here in the forest near the meadow.
"Oh, Hello!" Limb cries, his yellow eyes rolling in surprise. He'd been lost in thought as he slowly meandered, hardly present for the little lives he encountered; bugs and squirrels and flora, too, the leaves, branches, and roots. He'd passed it all by, head lost in the sky. This changes as he stands before the grulla stallion. Up his indigo spine, vertebra by vertebra, a sensation grows; not unlike when he reaches for the lowest parts of a sick tree (far beneath where the wind blows), where he whispers to the roots to stretch, suckle, and toil, for the water and minerals trapped there in the soil. But this present sensation changes, it deranges, leaves the colt splay-legged and scared; not scared--curious. Despite his rebirth's misgivings, the youth of this body and brain render him impervious: to fear, to common sense, to the potential danger of appearing graceless in front of a blind old magician.
But it cannot be helped. Limb steps closer. Gulps.
"You are touching the soil," he announces. "But, I can't figure out how..." Noticing the small crown of antlers atop the stallion's head, he bows. "What happens next? What--"
And then, from the earth, the first bone juts.
He might benefit from Abrus' reasons; to see memory loss as fated, not treason.
How lucky, then, that he stumbles upon the fellow, standing as he is here in the forest near the meadow.
"Oh, Hello!" Limb cries, his yellow eyes rolling in surprise. He'd been lost in thought as he slowly meandered, hardly present for the little lives he encountered; bugs and squirrels and flora, too, the leaves, branches, and roots. He'd passed it all by, head lost in the sky. This changes as he stands before the grulla stallion. Up his indigo spine, vertebra by vertebra, a sensation grows; not unlike when he reaches for the lowest parts of a sick tree (far beneath where the wind blows), where he whispers to the roots to stretch, suckle, and toil, for the water and minerals trapped there in the soil. But this present sensation changes, it deranges, leaves the colt splay-legged and scared; not scared--curious. Despite his rebirth's misgivings, the youth of this body and brain render him impervious: to fear, to common sense, to the potential danger of appearing graceless in front of a blind old magician.
But it cannot be helped. Limb steps closer. Gulps.
"You are touching the soil," he announces. "But, I can't figure out how..." Noticing the small crown of antlers atop the stallion's head, he bows. "What happens next? What--"
And then, from the earth, the first bone juts.