[AW] Before the dark hour of reason grows

[Miette]

Miette A frivolous heart beats beneath the pasty padding of the baby’s breast. Hooves delight, clattering raucously along cobble corridors with little regard for those mulling amid tall, wandering shadows therein; for sunlight gleams brightly out yonder and this vigorous game is to find each rare warm, golden shaft where it penetrated the queer stone ceiling above. The castle has become a playground, less a formal abode for the various royalty mentioned constantly by Mama and Papa and as they spend ever more time swanning about the marvellously chiselled interior, the foal seldom lets an opportunity to fantasise slip by. The sound of headlong galloping resonates wildly off the towering walls to either side of her puny, colourful frame. The mind is abuzz, ringing to the rhythm of a multitude of hooves - an army two hundred strong -  and they crash along behind her, hot breath and spittle bearing down ominously. A puddle of light lies seconds ahead, and Miette squares, strains, all focus there upon it… And they almost take her! Skin ignites as she slides beneath the protection of sun-warmth, and at once those chasing, begin to flounder about like stricken, stranded fish. The girl giggles, jubilance bubbling from the depth of a well-contented belly, and knees spring gleefully, excitedly, for she knows that their night-needing eyes cannot find her. But she cannot hide forever! Rid of that overwhelming flood of anticipation once more (the sound, shrill and young, hangs in the musty, dank air), icy eyes alight and travel the course next to be taken.  This time, the passage splits, branches and turns thereafter two opposite ways; Miette studies first one, and then the other but she can find no hint along either to suggest that the next refuge lies beyond. The silence is deafening - they, the troops, are plotting and scheming. One flint breaches the boundary between safety and not, the step clicks loudly and they step behind. Instantly she recoils, giddy as nervousness gnaws down on her courage. “I got thith…” She whispers, and draws a deep breath; then she springs from the sunlight and drives left beneath a maddening chaos of noise.   Any are welcome :)