The Kindreds, Volume 1

The Tenth, Pt. 3

Sada jolted awake to see a small blue shape curled up beside her. But unlike the deer and ferrets that ran away in a panic whenever she awoke to find them sleeping with her, the winged filly just lifted its head from her side and snorted softly. Her coat was long, fluffy, and not horse-like, especially since it was the color of the cerulean water lilies that the queen liked to have set out at the smaller feasts. The mane was a resplendent tumble of fluffy golden curls, with a tail to match. The wings, she saw, were a mix of that cerulean coat color, the gold of the mane, and brilliant white. And there was the horn, golden and covered in the blood of the fox. In her disorientation, Sada thought it was a guardian angel.

Then she looked into its eyes—its human eyes in an animal head—and all her panic over her wounds strangely receded. She saw in its eyes the eddies of mystery but also serenity, and somehow, she knew then that she was going to live.

"Oh good, you're ok," Sada said. Her foremost thoughts had been taken up by panic over her own condition, but in the back of her mind she'd harbored worry for the filly. It released with a sigh at the sight of the little foal.

Delicately, Sada held her hand out. The filly lifted its little muzzle to her fingers and sniffed noisily, nostrils flaring. Smoother than velvet, it tickled her skin. Its touch made her instincts do the same. Apparently satisfied, it nickered softly and Sada couldn't help but smile. It was curled close against Sada's side, and its brilliant eyes were shuttered lazily. Satisfied. Sada decided it would be safe to pet it. She reached out a hand to stroke its furry side, but as soon as her fingers felt the softness of the fur, that icy hot tingling shot up her entire left arm and shocks of words and images flashed through her brain.

Scared, bad, danger, she heard a panicked voice whimper, and she saw flashes of golden eyes and nine dark tails. Then it was help, protection, guardian, being breathed and suddenly Sada saw herself standing in front of the fox, bloody and panting but fending it off. She barely had time to register how strange it was to see herself from another person's perspective—as well as how awfully dirty her gown was—when the image faded. It was replaced by gruesome images of the fox twitching in the leaves, and then the warm taste of blood filled her mouth. When it came from biting her own lips, it made her tongue draw back reflexively. Yet this time, she liked the taste. She had no time to register that realization. No panicked words accompanied this image, and when it faded it wasn't followed by any others. Sada jerked her hand away from the foal with a gasp, the taste of blood instantly fading from her tongue. The Beast appeared surprised as well and blinked wide eyes at her.

"What in the skies above and the earth below was that?" Sada whispered. She stared at the winged unicorn, and it stared back.

It shouldn't be possible, but it was as though Sada had seen the foal's memories...felt her feelings. Her hand pulsed with the receding vibrations of her instincts, but that was hardly anything to think twice about now. She'd been accompanied by that strange sensation in her hand nearly since she'd entered Elt. This, however...she wondered if she had accidentally eaten another of those pink dream cherries. Perhaps the battle

(skirmish)

with the fox of nine tails and this encounter with the winged and horned horse was part of some tragically wonderful dream. The filly snorted softly, the warm air eddying on Sada's skin. That did little to convince her of her wakefulness. She reached out to touch her lovely blue coat again.

There were no flashing images. No breathless words of thought.

She was losing blood, on the edge of consciousness, and coming down from the heights of panic—that was enough to convince a rationally-minded person that she had imaged most or all of her interaction with the fantastical horse. And yet Sada was not a wholly rational person. She dreamed of implausible fantasies and had believed every fairytale Governess Brown and her nurses told her as a child. And even if she hadn't, your rational mind and your irrational heart have to agree for you to wholly accept something as true. And chills ran through her body when she remembered the hope-filled words that had accompanied the image of herself: protection, guardian. Then the thought of the fox took over, bloody and dying, and the rush Sada had felt disappeared. But not the feeling that it was real.