I tried to feel his voice. I don’t know how else to describe it. I tried to identify the flow of his tone, the extent of his accent. What experiences made him speak like that? And then, physically, how were the sounds formed in his throat? I pictured him with a kind, open face. An average-sized roan, with a blaze and alert little ears. Smart ears. His smiles would be hard-won and fleeting. That excited me-- I liked a challenge.
I didn’t turn to look at him yet. Instead I shifted my attention to his actual words. He answered my question with another question, and I really hated when adults did that to me. I could feel a frown forming, an instinct beyond my control. Furfur bristled and glared at the tall stranger. The picture of him changed in my mind. He grew skinny and long-nosed.
“They’re laughing, don’t you hear? They sound like girls. Sisters, maybe?” There was something else, too… something deeper than the laughter… something almost like language… I cocked my head and closed my eyes to listen to the flowers. My frown turned introspective, softer. I was told I had a very serious face, particularly when focused on something. Did they want me to smile more, laugh politely, curtsy and dance like a good little princess? Well. I couldn’t help my skinned knees and tangled hair and serious face. I didn’t know how to be any other way. Worse, for them, I didn’t want to.
The sunflowers laughed at my stubborn nature. A petal reached against all natural laws to brush softly against my temple, to the left of my horn. Then they whispered to me with a quiet rustling sound, like ground snakes slipping through the tall grass.
“They say I cast a long shadow. And you see knives where there are flowers. What do you think that means?”
I finally turned to look at the stranger.
He was big. Huge, even. In some ways he was similar to papa, with his dapples and his scars and his easy way of being. Like when he moved the world quietly adjusted to fit around him. But mostly I noticed the way he was different: his eyes, blue and not so sad. Not so haunted. And his cloak, simple but well made, hiding most of his body.
Of course, he was completely different from what I thought he would look like. It didn’t matter. I was not afraid of him. I was not afraid of anything. At least, that is what I told myself, over and over, until it became almost-true.
So when I angled myself with my horn pointed at him, delicate and deadly, it was a matter of precaution and not fear. Never fear. My voice was still bright and curious. I did not necessarily trust the blue-eyed stranger, but I assumed he knew more about the world than I did. “Do flowers always talk in riddles?” And then, because I was a child with more questions than I knew what to do with, I asked “How did you get those scars?”
@Sarkan your words feel like old friends <3
