FicWad

Chapter 1

The silent slither of waves is broken by a lengthy stride of a black stallion and a girl.

He stops for me and I quickly climb on before he changes his mind. I sit and we walk on calmly, watching the sky shade over to night in massive sweeping arcs. A beautiful mysterious crescent moon laughs in the gypsy indigo galaxy. A star winks at us and I know we're all right to wander the night. No storm or early tide will ravage our adventures tonight.

I breath into the stallions ear and we're connected. My soul in his grasp his soul just barely in mine. Ears perked, breath drawn and released, hoof stomp and we were off.

Sweet night air swam by; I soon became drunk on the feeling of satiny freedom as our ride took us across the white sandy shelf of beach.

My body rocked in soft arcs along with his pounding hooves, we really had become one. Like a centaur we galloped on, ocean spray wetting the freedom like butter on a dry biscuit.

I opened my eyes and looked at the stars all of them Iknow. Their names, locations, journeys, all taught by someone whose face had already started to fade. Disappearing like foot prints in the sand. But knowledge never fades so long as it is kept known, and so I quizzed myself every night, just to remember.

Pegasus, Orion's Belt, Orion, Big Dipper, Little Dipper, oh Leo, I whispered in my head.

Then I saw it, a white blaze of paint streak the usual color of night surprising the audience. But only for a split second. Only for a moment. Only for those who see. So I wished and felt a nicker from the stallion and split the star in half sharing it with him. He seemed to pick up speed and I guessed he wished for wings. He always did have a pride for being the fastest creature on the land, but he also had ambition and waited for the days he could beat the Hunting Falcon and be the fastest creature in the sky. But he'd probably, after acquiring that, wish to become a Greek hippocampus and become the fastest creature in the sea, but let's not get started with that.

What did I wish for? Something different than our everyday routine, something that smells strongly of adventure or a challenge of something new. I wanted to start over, start a new beginning to the end of our old lives, we need to break away from the bonds of death that still held us, we needed to become ourselves and bloom like we've never been able to do. It is our next journey through life.

Soon the stallion's fast paced drum beat led us to the grassy plains that curled around the beaches like one big blanket. As soon as we reached the wispy grass he gave a small buck and I slid off, feeling my breath enter me and our soul tie dull a bit.

I sighed, adrenaline causing my heart to skitter-beat everywhere like the wings of a caught sparrow. I sat in the ground, feeling little grass bugs tickle my toes, feeling the chilled summer air and the scratchy softness of the long grass.

The stallion grazed thoughtfully and alert. He never was relaxed. For years I've been trying to string him out and make him stretchy and fun, but his stubbornness only led to kicks and warning snorts.

I looked at my stallion and saw his flanks twitch absentmindedly. He looked only two years and he was. In fact tonight is his birthday. He was born when I was twelve and still just really discovering the world on my own. It was as if my former Care-Taker had switched places w/ this wild unpredictable horse.

A small smile spread across my face in silent laughter at the thought of those two meeting. What a disaster that would be.

Suddenly my smile twisted abnormally into a look of ashen pain. Grief was cruel when it came unexpected. And so I stopped thinking it and got up, startling the stallion. I walked to the jagged shelf that rose a little above the beach and stood there. Every emotion draining with the night as the warming pale fire rose and meet me with unspoken light and promise.

With no warning Sun rose up and spooked me. I blinked away the brights as rays shone in my eye sight. I reached a hand out to steady myself, my legs gone stiff after not moving for hours, and I felt the comforting silky black coat of the stallion.

I snatched a glance at him and saw what I always do. Ahorse who can look into the sun without being blinded. He was the only one who could. His blue eyes shifting, watching something down the golden path of Sun. I always wished I had his eyes to look through so I could see if my Care-Taker was there, waiting and watching with every time Sun rose.

A soft breath of air breezed through my raggily copper hair as the stallion nuzzled me then swung his acute nose in the direction of camp.

I smirked and shook my head. With a fluid movement Igrabbed his mane by the withers and flew on. Only as my other leg swung over did he speed away, causing my seat to be halfway down his ribcage.

You stupid horse, I laughed as we galloped from the sandy grass plains onto soil ones toward hills with hidey-holes and escape routes for a long forgotten tribe, toward our secret route.

I fell asleep halfway there and a small bite jolted me up. Groggily I slid off and landed with a thump on the ground wiping the last of sleep's spell.

After a nudge and then a threatening nicker, I got up and grabbed wood and kindling from the entrance of our cave which hung on a ledge in a cliff near the beach.

Long ago when the beach hadn't been so low, the tide would enter it and leave water stains. But not just the walls, even a red painting still remained. This was a Drowning Cave, a Sacrifice Altar, and Death for any who entered. Stone hooks still stuck to the walls where prisoners were chained and left for the incoming tide. In many legends there is no path to the beyond by water, only by boat if you died with one, but not drowned, with no boat you came off unlucky. This was a waiting place for spirits.

If I was still with my Care-Taker I would have never stepped in here, but my stallion had said it was safe and so he lived here. He was born here, but his mother had died her was stolen and his father had gone made at the sight of blue eyes and had run off a cliff and broke his neck.

I watched with my tears in my eyes as a little foal screeched piteously after his falling father. I watched pebbles rain away as he came to close to death and the instant I had touched him he had bit me, but we became inseparable, intertwined. And his Ghost Eyes never bothered me. I had Ghost Eyes too.