don't want no scrubs (blue)

[alkyone]

The forest looked not at all different from every forest that Alkyone had traversed through before now. But she'd heard things about this forest. Apparently it turned as lit and silver-painted as the sky at night, everything glowing as though lit by an inner fire bleeding through. Alkyone wanted to see this phenomenon. Reasons like the Celestial Forest were why she had run away from her family in the first place, after all. The slender femme tracked her way through the woods, daggers pressing cresent-shaped prints into the pine needle-riddled earth, the spongy forest floor absorbing her path as she moved as though she had never been there. Should Alkyone look over her shoulder, doe-like orbs tracing her steps back, she would see that her journey had no rhyme or reason left, nothing to mark her presence, there was little more than fallen leaves she'd shaken from their branches to mark the way she had come. Alkyone supposed that if she tracked her own scent, she might find her way, but the inquisitive soul had no such intention. She was looking for something much greater than rhyme or reason. Adventure was out there! And Alkyone was on her way to finding it. Amusement curved the silky lady's lips, turning up the corners and giving her a rather impish look. Mischief came easily to such an idealistic creature, and she danced in place, cranium tossing high and sending her long locks flying, a curtain of ink spraying through the air and landing once more upon the curvature of her neck. She was gorgeous, insatiable, a creature of undiscovered depths of wealth within her silvery bodice and her warm soul. Alkyone figured she might fit in the Celestial Forest like she fit in nowhere else. The glowing lights at night might match the slender light of her pelt so well that she'd never leave. Alkyone wondered if anyone had ever been caught by such magic here. Were there those who had been so caught in the luminous lights that they'd never stepped foot outside the forest again, for fear of missing such a gorgeous phenomenon? Alkyone didn't plan on being one such creature. She would enjoy the lights for however long it took her to cross the Celestial Forest and once she was free of it, Alkyone would tell the tale to whomever would listen outside the forest.

The Arabian queen danced forward a few more steps, pistons striking the earth in a mesmerizing dance, bringing to mind the image of a cobra weaving its way to poisonous strike. Alkyone was not nearly so dangerous. Her dark brown orbs, shaded the same palette as the surrounding forest, were full of wonder and curiosity. Nowhere to be found was the sadistic temptations of so many others that she had met. Alkyone put those memories out of her mind, determined to live this moment without the taint of horrendous monsters crawling within her cranium. She had better things to think of, better things to do, like trek her way carefully down a slippery slope. The trees along this slope had roots crawling and gaping, clearly visible to her eye and above the earth in which they should have been sleeping. Given the slick give of the ground beneath her pointed daggers, Alkyone surmised that water used to run this way. The heat of the summer had sucked every drop of a once-lively stream away and Alkyone was reminded of her thirst, as soon as she pictured a river in her mind. This could hardly be so large, but she wandered in that direction anyway, hoping that if she were to follow downstream and downhill, there might be a stream or pond left to drink from. The slope slowly narrowed and tapered, following the path of the stream that had carved its way through uneven terrain. Pebbles clacked under her hooves now and Alkyone dropped her muzzle to smell them, acknowledging that they were wet and water was not too far away. Curiosity, as usual, drove her forward, but as she brushed between two low-hanging trees and felt the pressure of the limbs tugging at her skin, Alkyone trotted free and spun around, pebbles spitting from beneath her pointed daggers as she stared at the leaves, searching for any sign of bright blood. It was a constant nightmare of hers, to see evidence of a wound and never find the thing, to know that somewhere she was leaking her life away and would never know how or where. It was a thought that chased her in her sleep and in her wake, a nagging terror soothed only by rituals and the presence of others, as much as it irked the independent spirit within the compulsive mare. There was nothing like blood to be seen and she smelled nothing, but the search continued on anyway, Alkyone twisting her neck in order to examine every part of her body that she could see. Anxiety clouded up in her throat, as though her stomach was lifting in order to choke her, but the lack of sight and smell of blood had it easing somewhat as she completed the ritual and tried to relax her muscles again, trying to refocus on her journey to find the remnants of this stream.

Not for the first time, Alkyone wished she had a companion of sorts to reassure her of her lack of injury. For all she knew, a little cut could be sluggishly bleeding away on the back of her hind leg, or beneath the curtain of her mane, and what would she know about it? Not until infection set in and the smell reached her nostrils would she know, and by then, it might even be too late. The skin along her ribs twitched as she shuddered with disgust. She would rather die in battle than a slow agonizing death committed by her own body. The silky lady turned in a quick circle, long pistons spinning, and it was in this circle as she attempted to reorient herself and move on from the sickening images in her mind that she saw a shape in her peripheral vision, and came to a halt, harks pricking forward and wide orbs focusing on this new sight. "Hello?"


tagged ;; blue with merlot
words ;; 1042
notes ;; YAY I'm so glad to be role-playing horses again that this post kinda blew up! Don't feel like you need to match the word count, obviously, I probably won't get this high again for awhile xD