[P] [Summer] Rainbow Fish

[Io]

io





Io was adrift in a great grass sea. It rose and fell like waves, pulling at her and drawing her forward.

Her flanks and underbelly were sodden with sweat, and her back and butt had been roasted to a perfectly crisp potato chip texture. The tips of her ears were even sweating where they were pressed against her neck in frustration.

The sun had fallen below the horizon at least an hour ago. The blistering heat had finally faded, but the air was still thick with humidity and moisture. Moonlight illuminated the prairie around her in a soft pale glow. Tall grass extended in every direction, rolling over hills and crinkling in the weak breeze. Tree cover had been minimal at best once she'd walked far enough south, and drinking water was few and far between.

She was much happier climbing the winding, uneven paths through the mountains. The chill nipped at her skin and turned her breath milky white. When she finally crested the rocky ridges the vast, echoing chasm below would pull at her chest in excitement. She could turn her gaze skyward, to the dark blanket of the night sky, dotted with tiny, beautiful lights. Sometimes an aurora would paint the sky with stripes that bled like colorful spilled ink over the monochrome expanse. Looking at it all made her feel so small.

Different from how small she felt now. Belly deep in grass, lost beyond measure, and further from her home than she’d ever been. She felt like a bug in a sea of shrubbery, when she so clearly was destined to be a star in the sky.

Finally, after hours of endless roaming, the whispering grass gave way to a new sound. It was loud. It was the sounds of other horses. Strangers. The looming horizon was illuminated by distant lights that polluted the deep blue/black that swelled overhead. Her tired legs carried her to the fringes of the grasslands, where the ground became soft and crumbly underfoot. She lingered there, half hidden, watching in a daze. There was so much activity and artificial light, so many nameless, exotic faces. They were were all bright, flashy colors that caught the lantern and torchlight like gemstones. She couldn't help but to stare at them all.

A single sound filtered out from the rest. It was soft and repetitive, a crashing sound that came every few minutes behind the bustle.

She walked with purpose toward the noise, ignoring any possible onlookers. Just act natural, she told herself. Hopefully none of these strangers would question her presence or try to make her leave.

The sound wound up to be an endless expanse of water, stretching as far as she could see. She swung her head to the left and right, but each direction was also marked with a stripe of land and water that continued off into the distance, beyond the reaches of the torchlight and moonlight, swallowed up by shadows and darkness.

Her wisp of a tail flicked behind her as she turned to peer at the horses around her.

There was one, a giant rust colored one, that seemed as captivated by the night sky as she felt sometimes. He wasn't colored like a winter sunset before a blizzard. His ears were long and floppy like she’d never seen on an equine, and his form was somehow both stocky, stout, awkward, and knobby all at once. A real dork, to be sure. It was hard to be intimidated by him.

“Hello,” She called gently, making her way over to where he stood. Her efforts to appear unaffected by her surroundings were hindered by the way the soft ground pulled away from her and sank up to her fetlocks.
“What is this place?”



"talk"