As I stood there waiting for the race to begin, my body did not feel entirely mine. See, I felt calm as death but my heart was beating faster, faster, faster, already off on a race of its own against the drumming of the fire dances. My eyes disobeyed me too, straying to the fires where unnatural colors twisted and curled and beckoned for me. I felt one of my hooves paw at the ground impatiently, and my head tossed as though in challenge to the smoke that thickened all around.
When the music stopped my heart did, too, skipping a beat, and thus I began the race having just faltered, and with the smoke just beginning to burn my eyes. It did not matter. We all sprang forward at once, the fever pitch bursting forward a wave of flesh and sweat and nerves. I ran like never before. I had grown up running up and down the mountain, and my hooves ate up the flat, straight course greedily. I was not first, but I was steadily gaining with each stride.
As the path turned and the first obstacle became very, very, undeniably clear, I noticed the bottleneck as horses crammed to the paths left and right of the fiery barrier. My hesitation lasted only a moment- if I strayed the path, I would surely lose.
I was not there to lose.
I kept straight and leapt over the flames, into the curtain of smoke.
@Official Dawn Account Aspara chooses to jump over the hedge <3
