[open] young spitfires

[Mazikeen]

It does not take Mazikeen long in her young life to begin testing boundaries - or, rather, slipping past them. As attentive as Agetta tries to be, the young filly quickly learned how to take her mother’s distracted moods and turn them to her advantage. Without malice, just to see whether she could. And once she figured out that she could, she began nudging ever so gently further and further out. There was a great big world out there, and the fire-eyed filly wanted to see it all. Under a warm spring sun, Mazikeen dips away from her mother and drifts towards the common lands. Still young, she decides she’s not quite ready to lose herself in the meadow (perhaps tomorrow) but instead opts for a trial run of this whole freedom thing in the playground. She soon begins to feel a tickle along her spine, a growing sense of discomfort, the deeper she wanders into the place. There is life here, there must be, but it is near-silent except for the constant noise of nature. A rustling in the old trees that stand like sentries or the call of birds is not enough to settle the growing sense of unease in her young mind. Mazikeen doesn’t yet know that it’s the lack of voices, the lack of true noise, that she can’t stand. The silence chokes her, just like all the quiet nights with her mother - suffocating her with all the secrets left unsaid but heavy in the air and attitudes. She’s not expecting it when she does hear a voice and to her great shame she spooks - but not just spooks. She spooks and shifts, one moment a startled filly and the next an even more startled young hawk who flaps her wings desperately for a few beats before landing ungracefully on the soft grass.