Mama is growing fat again and papa says it’s because she’s having another baby. Which means less time for them to indulge her and mama has even started to push her away whenever she’s tried to nurse from her. She doesn’t like it, so papa tries to teach her to eat the grass but it’s so bland! So she skips away, daydreaming about clouds and green eyes and disembodied voices.
She’s tried and tried many times to become invisible but it never happens. Wander is pretty much certain that she just can’t do it like he can. All she has is her growing horns that shoot up in much more impressive spires now that she’s growing up too. Apricot skin stretches and itches to accommodate lengthening bones and muscles, and her upright mane is more of a messy mop of knots and curls.
Wander sneaks away in the twilight, her little hooves making the light crust of snow underfoot crunch at every step. Neither mama nor papa seem to notice that she is gone again, mumbling their lovey-dovey nonsense to one another as their heads hang low and close. She huffs and refuses to look back; part of her is disgusted and part of her - a much bigger part - wants that very same thing, a love without end. Except she’ll have to take the mushy bits too, with all the bravery and excitement that she also thinks should come with love.
Or maybe she’s thinking of adventure instead, as she plods along in the falling dark. She’s so lost in her thoughts that she doesn’t notice him up above her, flying around. The dark easily masks his shadow that should otherwise race against her own on the ground. There’s only the swirl of grass to alert her to something as she spins on her heel, pronged head lowered in retaliation until she hears the familiar “Boo!” and her face breaks into a happy grin.
He was hardly frightening any more but he had caught her unawares; a thing he was good at doing! She laughed happily and freely as he nudged her, and she’d nudge him back but felt silly for trying to do so since he was invisible to the naked eye. What if she nudged pure air instead? She couldn’t see his handsome green eyes but she could hear a bit of the hopefulness in his voice as he tells her that he’s mastered flying.
Wander is faintly jealous; what must it be like to be able to touch the clouds? A thousand thoughts run through her head until she reins them back in and smiles at him. “That’s wonderful! Tell me what it’s like up there, amongst the birds and the clouds…” and her apricot face grows wistful as she stares at him in dreamy expectation.
@[Pteron] omg I love them! ❤️