04-10-2015, 03:49 AM
She walks as if the soft green grass beneath her feet were made of glass. Slowly, carefully, with a precision she has practiced for nearly two years now. It has been nearly two years since she has felt a single blade of grass break beneath her hoof – so long that she yearns for it, driven to wistfulness as she imagines being once again a filly, crashing recklessly through the underbrush, breaking branches, breaking grass, breaking twigs, and never breaking stride.
Now she just breaks.
Eulia used to long for things a young orphaned filly would. Having other children who would play with her instead of widen their eyes at her words and shy away. How their flesh would warm hers, if she could feel the blood coursing through her veins if she pressed just close enough.
When her baby-fuzz gave way to a sleek yearling coat, she thought about how small her hooves were.
There was a day where her youthful wanderings led her to a sandy shoreline and a vast expanse of water that stretched to the horizon. She was not alone. There was a man there, rearing, again and again, kicking up the dirty sand, reveling with an unusual zeal in the chill oceanside draft. When curiosity brought her closer she noticed that he was not, in fact, trampling the earth, but a limp and bloodied brown body spread across it. The stallion who was splitting it apart was a great, hulking beast of a thing; little Eu, merely a pony cross with small feet that she knew would never bear the strength to crack skulls, but surely a girl can dream!
She dreams it still.
Her thoughts, though, are interrupted. The grass, cropped perpetually short by the ever-present traffic in the place, is suddenly tickling her underbelly. Her black lips part. She giggles once. Stops. She used to laugh a lot, a wonderful, uncontainable sort of laughter that would bring her to her knees, to the ground, but now laughing is dangerous. Anything that compromises her self-control compromises balance – anything that compromises balance compromises her life. Still, with every movement, she feels the grass, feather-light, brushing ever so slightly against her skin and it takes all the effort she has to control herself.
“You are going to kill me, at this rate,” she calls to the source of the magic. She isn’t sure where this creature is, whatever beast grew the grass so, but she knows it must be close. Her eyes shut as she tries to keep the smile off her face, her sides heaving. Don’t laugh. But oh, how she wants to lose control.
“Do continue.”
Now she just breaks.
Eulia used to long for things a young orphaned filly would. Having other children who would play with her instead of widen their eyes at her words and shy away. How their flesh would warm hers, if she could feel the blood coursing through her veins if she pressed just close enough.
When her baby-fuzz gave way to a sleek yearling coat, she thought about how small her hooves were.
There was a day where her youthful wanderings led her to a sandy shoreline and a vast expanse of water that stretched to the horizon. She was not alone. There was a man there, rearing, again and again, kicking up the dirty sand, reveling with an unusual zeal in the chill oceanside draft. When curiosity brought her closer she noticed that he was not, in fact, trampling the earth, but a limp and bloodied brown body spread across it. The stallion who was splitting it apart was a great, hulking beast of a thing; little Eu, merely a pony cross with small feet that she knew would never bear the strength to crack skulls, but surely a girl can dream!
She dreams it still.
Her thoughts, though, are interrupted. The grass, cropped perpetually short by the ever-present traffic in the place, is suddenly tickling her underbelly. Her black lips part. She giggles once. Stops. She used to laugh a lot, a wonderful, uncontainable sort of laughter that would bring her to her knees, to the ground, but now laughing is dangerous. Anything that compromises her self-control compromises balance – anything that compromises balance compromises her life. Still, with every movement, she feels the grass, feather-light, brushing ever so slightly against her skin and it takes all the effort she has to control herself.
“You are going to kill me, at this rate,” she calls to the source of the magic. She isn’t sure where this creature is, whatever beast grew the grass so, but she knows it must be close. Her eyes shut as she tries to keep the smile off her face, her sides heaving. Don’t laugh. But oh, how she wants to lose control.
“Do continue.”