Sometimes, Aela thinks she sees... something. The girl is coming to learn that sometimes when she looks at a soul (that's how she sees them, a glimmer and then gone) that she is seeing it in parts and pieces. An irritable older stallion who swishes his dark tail in circles gives the appearance that it's the summer insects bothering him as he stamps a hind leg. The filly had come too close when passing by him and had been startled to catch a ripple of anger as it seethed off him, something that didn’t have to do with the flies at all.
'Were you going to tell me?’ asked a bitter memory, sending waves of exasperation through the golden girl.
Aela had skittered away and tried to keep to herself after that. A butterfly is easier to chase because the only thing that follows in its wingbeats is the wind. She trots behind a rabbit because the only memory that it leaves behind is the fox who keeps to the other side of Meadow and so he doesn’t go that way. The falcon that she carefully watches as he flies overhead has a favorite perch in an ash tree near the River (she catches the shimmer of sun on a trickling brook).
So busy looking up that the girl doesn’t notice the gray stallion standing nearby.
The bird flies into the treeline, taking his sights with him and leaves Aela standing alone with the prickling sensation that she isn’t alone. That feeling shivers along her spine and the wind comfortingly ruffles her flaxen mane as she looks behind her, realizing that there is a ghost on the hill. She stands perfectly still, waiting for it to fade as the echoes so often do.
But blinking her blue eyes does nothing to dissipate the specter.
She blinks again. He is still there. Aela tilts her head as she turns her body around because unlike so many of the others, there is … nothing. Coming closering, she realizes that he is as real as she is and no amount of blinking will make him vanish. Yet, there is something different about him. The filly is usually happy to stand alone and to remain in the distance, observing and watching. She is more often the observer and realizing that there is nothing that glints off the pale stranger - not like the others that so often overwhelm her - draws her closer.
It’s only a few tentative steps (Aela is still a cautious girl, after all) that she takes before she stops in front of him. Intrigued, she tilts her head because even with this proximity, there is still nothing and Aela finds that oddly comforting. She raises a front leg and lightly taps the ground, intrigued.
Did he know that he was missing?
@[kensley] fast car came on so i took it as a sign to post to you