 |
|
The music was soothing, but she was still terrified. She couldn’t help it. She didn’t want to be afraid, but it had been near beaten into her head as a newborn up until she was weaned. It hadn’t gotten better as she aged. She had learned once that not everyone was so bad, but this new place was so different and scary. And she didn’t have Pandora to reassure her. She knew the plush fox with sewn seams and the same button eyes was around here somewhere, but the strange magic refused to let them be together until she passed some test she didn’t understand. The filly wrinkled her nose and then threw her head up as the music stopped and the stallion faced her, and then worse! He moved closer! He asked if she was alright, and she stared for a moment through her button eyes, stammering and quivering. Obviously she was not ok, but she couldn’t tell him that. She wanted to be big and brave and not afraid. But how? How could she do that? How could she be not afraid when she was locked in her own mind? Ugh! Damn her mother for her cruel ways. ”You aren’t going to eat me, are you? I didn’t mean to intrude…” She assumed that everyone she found by accident was going to be upset and inevitably turn into a horse-eating monster in its fury. But he didn’t look like a monster. Maybe he wasn’t so bad? Maybe he was just like she was (without the buttons, and with wings and some strange music around his neck) like the mare, Inkheart. She had wings. The filly felt a trill of hope in her breast. Maybe she wouldn’t be eaten today, and could make a friend! What a curious concept. ”I heard the music. It was pretty.” She didn’t know if “pretty” was a good word, but her mind was that of a yearling, and yearlings liked pretty things. You see, my darling silver girl was three, but had been in a magical coma for two years, leaving her body to grow, but her mind to remain the same. It was almost a crime, what the poor girl had been through, but there was no undoing what the magic had done. All she could do was live her life and try to grow out of her strange fears. ”I’m Coraline.” Her voice was sweet and soft, like the tinkling of many tiny bells. She was, truly, a sweet girl with a lot of potential, but she first had to realize it, and then live up to it. Maybe one day she could stride up to a stranger, introduce herself, and play a friendly game of tag. That’s what adults did…wasn’t it? ”Speech” |
 | Silver chain from the pirate siren | Blue Macaw feather in mane | |
@Iliad
