[open] someone whose eyes are on the horizon

[Islay]

The smile that spreads across the other girl's face is like the sunshine that is all around us. It is beaming and it makes me feel like the sunrays that warm my back touch the rest of my soul. Maybe I should be more cautious, maybe I should hang back like the tides sometimes do on Islandres (because a part of me is always longing for the night).

But I decide that even if she has the sun on her cheek, I will be like the moon that calls the waves to come crashing back to shore.

She is the first child my age that I have met (though I love Bran and wonder about Narcissus) and the grin I mirror her with is bright with excitement. I don't have to look up at somebody for once and this is another revelation that I find thrilling. I wonder where she comes from. I wonder if she has siblings that she has to look up to as well. I wonder if she has a mother who wanders and a father who loves the night. I wonder and wonder, just as I wonder about the sun on her cheek.

Speaking with a voice that makes me think of dusk, when the sky is still a hazy myriad of the coming midnight colors, she answers my question. My dark blue eyes sparkle at that because there is still the possibility that it could. "Well, I'll keep an eye on it," I tell my new companion and cast another curious glance at her sunmark. The other filly tosses her head and I join in the gesture, pleasantly surprising myself when my blue forelock moves to the side. (I normally have to battle with it because never it seems to settle with the sea breezes always whipping it about. Papa tries to smooth it but that is only as good for as long I can keep still - which is usually not long at all.)

"Islay," I tell her in reply and my smile turns shy. This is the first time that I have introduced myself to another - without my family or my herd around. It feels almost as monumental as the small journey I have taken. "From Islandres!" I say, because I want to share that with her too. That I am not from here and this is my first real adventure, an obvious telling since the only scents that cling to my painted coat are of salt and sunshine, of my family. It makes me curious if like me, this is her first adventure, it makes me wonder, "where are you from?"

@[aestas]