| phoe's dreams |

[phoe]

This kin has no naming dream at this time.

[phoe]

The doe screams in terror as she thrashes, sinking under the warm, sinking sand,

until she finds her footing, stands up, and moves on...

[phoe]

The feather
is sinking ever so slowly, down, down,
onto a bird that will never fly again.

[phoe]

This kin has no naming dream at this time.

[phoe]

This kin has no naming dream at this time.

[phoe]

This kin has no naming dream at this time.

[phoe]

The caiman bites down on the fish. A sudden struggling thrash, and it stills.
Then the river turns red.

[phoe]

Plink-plink, dribble drop, hiss splash, dibble dopp.
The water sings, if you sit quiet and stop.

[phoe]

She comes alive all at once, she becomes all at once, like the sudden booming crash of a thunderclap.

[phoe]

An image: Flint, in the night, the only color besides the deep blues and blacks the sparks kicked up by his hooves.

[phoe]

He travels in the shadow of the old buck's bulk, watching as the buck's thin hips and wiry frame move under his pelt.
The buck has a peculiar gait as they make their way through the desert, not just because his joints must be weary and his muscles tired.
He walks in a roundabout way, stepstep, step, st-step, a pause; step step. A pause. Step. Each motion is carefully weighed, considered, enacted.

The youngling finds himself confused, but tries to mimic as best he can, until a foal's curiosity overtakes him. He pauses, and asks, "Why do you walk without rhythm?"

The old weathered buck looks down at him with an impassive face. Step. Stepstepstep. Step step. Stepstep. Step. Pause. And then his blue eyes flick to the sand underneath their feet.

"Walk without rhythm," he says, "and you won't attract the worm."

[phoe]

This kin has no naming dream at this time.

[phoe]

He stands on the cliff, plants his feet, and faces the oncoming storm.
The wind rises up and whips his mane and tail into a knotted tangle, steals his breath away, pelts his skin with rain.

It's a threat, and he has never been one to be threatened.

The storm breaks to either side of him. He pierces the clouds.
They mound up to either side in great dark heaps, lashing the ground with rain, lightning streaking between the clouds...

but overhead, he can see the sun.

[phoe]

Holding anything for too long means it can harm you.

So he doesn't -- he catches it, and he lets it go.

[phoe]

He finds the fruit hanging deliciously red and swollen-ripe from the tree, gleaming in the sun, and eats as much as he can.

It's there for the taking, and it has an interesting sort of buzzing taste, almost effervescent.

When they find him three days later, eyes bulging and tongue sticking out of his mouth, throat swollen shut and lips blue, sides still in death, they shrug.

It was poison, they nod, sadly, to one another. He should have been more careful. Didn't he know that fruit would kill him?

The flies buzz over his corpse, but leave the now-rotting fruits on the tree well enough alone. Even they know.