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It was an ocean of grass and it stretched on endlessly in every direction. No matter how he turned, left or right, round and round until the scenery blurred into a haze of blue and green, of earth and sky, of wind and grass and the fragrance of summer fading, the horizon was all he could see. It was an exhilarating sensation, as daunting as it was humbling, and the urge to run came over him with inescapable intensity. With no reason to refuse, Finnian laughed out loud and obliged, digging hard black hooves deep into the dry earth as he heaved himself forth. There was something extremely pleasant about pushing his body to the limit. The sensation of his own muscles bunching and extending, the burn of hot air rushing through the wind-pipes, the sweet ache as stiff muscles and joints began to loosen up and feel the strain of the run... It was addictive, a constant craving that old age or infirmity would never take away, a hallmark of youth and independence that no one could take away, that was a part of his very essence. Finnian laughed again as he ran, a fierce wild laughter of sheer joy that celebrated life after his near escape from death... but when he finally slowed down, winded and sweaty, with green in the hair and blue in the eyes, the jubilant smile slowly began to fade from his lips. The past was, alas, rarely far from his thoughts. It was well and good that he had found a nice place to rest and recuperate from his ordeals, good to have found friends already in this foreign land, but it did little to soothe the deep loneliness within him. Folding the legs beneath him to revel in the emerald sea, the young stallion thought of home, his thoughts going out to the ones he had left behind. Good friends, familiar vistas, the graves of his parents... All lay far to the south now, unreachable unless he found some way of walking on water or managed to grow wings. Never would he try to cross that ocean again; drowning had carved a deep fear of the salty desert into his mind, and he would be hard pressed to even wade out into the cold blue again. It should make him feel safe. If he couldn't get to them, then surely no one would be able to get to him either... But Finnian did not feel safe. Merely angry, and sad, and haunted by the same questions he had chewed over and over since the day his father had been killed. Who had done it? Why had they attacked? And, most importantly for him, how was he going to find the answers to his questions? The notion that he might have to live with these questions for the rest of his life had touched him, but Finnian did not find it appealing. He wanted to know who had destroyed his life, and make them pay for every tear he'd ever shed. Staring up into the sky from where he lay on the ground, he sighed at the drifting clouds and let the blue envelop him, sending his thoughts all a whirl across the universe. |
@Anonymous
