m i n d . o v e r . < < m a t t e r > >

[scrimpy]

"I'll tell you what I've done for you," I spat stiffly with my teeth threatening to cleave at his flank. Looping around him with muscles ready to pounce I gave him once last warning to back down.

"Child," he said mockingly, "You wouldn't dare hurt your own kin, your brother, would you?"

"What makes you think I wouldn't?" I remarked snarkily as I rounded the front of him. Brother or not, I would not serve him another moment, I wouldn't take nuts from him again. No, I'd leave, and all his whores behind for good. No devotion, no more loyalty, no more anything from him. Damn b*stard. And he thinks he can mock me so easily, and he says I'm everyone's fool. Wait till he sees how much of a fool I can be when he's down on the ground.

"Because I know you," Bressal reasoned smoothly. His deep honey eyes watching me without any concern or homage. I know behind the ebon' forelock there is something that bonds me to him, knowing he had been there to play with during my first year; always teaching me, showing me little knick knacks here and there. "And you would never betray your brother."

I looked away and shook my head with my eyelids stitched closed. "No," I breathed maliciously. "You don't know me."

"Then you're a wolf in a sheep's skin," the stallion justified angrily. His voice filled with ominously unruffled tone. "And you'll die alone without your pack by your side."

I grimaced at my brother, knowing he would not let me leave these lands willingly. "Then let violence be the end of our conflict since words fail us all to much," I proclaimed disturbingly.

Underneath that dusty chestnut coat I could see his muscles building up with tension. Everything came to a stand still as he leapt into the air with back arching and teeth flaring open as far as his mouth would allow. A lurid cry echoed out from his chest like thunder as he came tumbling seventeen hundred pounds towards my sixteen hand body.

Turning on my heels, I kicked up a cloud of dirt clumps and dust as I lacerated the earth with dull hooves. My ears filled with shrill cries and the stampeding of the rest of his whores and followers coming to his aid. My head swerved to either side to catch glimpses of them coming to my onslaught. Their voracious faces filled with only baleful desires to see me trampled, to have the black lamb finally slain.

Twisting and turning to accommodate the sub-forest landscape that made up my birth home. Black birds flew over head as we disturbed their nesting grounds, but blinded by the darkness of a new moon it was impossible to miss to them. And so only by starlight I flew across the fallen logs and decaying vegetation. My lungs cried for the inadequate amount of air I filled with them, and my heart thrashed irrationally in my chest painfully.

But it's all about mind over matter and how much you're willing to sacrifice for the reward.

Looking to the horizon I could see the first shades of color painting the black yonder above. Faded images with eerie shadows were casted onto the setting and I could see the drop off. My goal was suicidal, but the only way to survive to see another day, one with happiness, would be to clear something that had never been done. For just a bit further will be my-

My body became a dead weight with gravity as my bro- no my hunter Bressal chomped into my flank. The cool liquid coursed down my leg, but my eyes widened as I saw I was still skidding from my impact. Then I rolled over the ledge and into the darkness.

'This is for you mum,' was my last thought....

present________________________________
(Many weeks later)
A small limp accompanied me as I stalked through this hushed grove. The ancestral trees loomed ominous shadows across the decaying bedspread that enveloped the soil. A strong stench of water and decay mixed with a subtle tang of evergreens. Spanish moss covered the trees like bad hair balls. No sound but the grinding over leaves and frost beneath my hooves echoed here. The minimum sunlight that filtered through the tall canopies came in little amounts but glistened like heaven was just a leap away.

My slow pace and camouflage ebon' and ivory coat obscured my shape. I was nothing more than a nymph in these sheltered woodlands. And with no wind to carry on the early scents of spring, no predator or equine would be able to seek me out with smell effortlessly.

So like my mentor Katastrophe, I held my head with a humble pride as my slender legs flowed over the ground fluently. In my self-made breeze toiled the ends of my bicolored mane and twin appendage (tail). Every now and then I would glimpse around me, enjoying this silence. This bewitched place seemed to cast a spell onto you to keep you tranquil in the serene environment.

Stopping just short one of this celestial rays I looked up. I dared not disturb the aglow appeal as it reflected off the melting snow. I became hypnotized as I just stared off into space, filled with a pleasant feeling that was neither happy nor sad but neutral. Just stare and watch the sunlight creep by slowly. And let every thing go....

My gaze fell after what seemed to be an eternity, but there was no sign up of what I was searching for. Turning on my heels, I lifted up each hoof and proceeded to leave the filtered rays of this forest. My ears guided me as trickling water from a nearly spring. The forest seemed to give way to hock-high grassy and shrubbery. Slow and steady the change occurred like watching the earth shift into something new and brilliant. I loved it for the fact it reminded me of a time when I could be myself without the worry of embarrassment. A time when I didn't have to question everyone and look over my back.

Simplicity and Bliss.

Flocks of butterflies and bees gathered to pollinate a few blooming blossoms. But like the forest, this little meadow (or clearing, whatever you would like to call it) was just as still and silent. The movement of the spring into a small, crisp pond echoed only the noise besides my light breathing.

Suddenly a light breeze brushed against my neck like a warm nuzzle. I could a single voice coming from the back of my head, a lulling voice that had been preserved. It told me softly that this land, was spit of it, was part of something larger, much larger. I had a crossed a melting ocean of ice and came here.

Destiny and fate had intertwined and set my course to be a long and hard one....

Holding still I bowed my head to the ground and smiled. After all this time I felt an attachment to the land, to the essence of the spirits that made claim to the land. For once my heart seemed to beat with an extra 'humph' in it. A strange comfort enveloped me like a gelatinous veil. I was home.

But I look forward to it for pain is nothing more than

m i n d
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m a t t e r

Words: 1261
Characters: 6824
Completion: Done

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[scrimpy]

My ivories yanked away at the tender greens of energy. My eyes remained stitched together by some invisible force. I just inhaled and exhaled with my scraggly yin and yang locks rolling with the motion of the wind's breath. I thought about my sister, my dearest sister and whatever happened to her. I should have brought her with me, not leave her with my brother. Even though she's older than me by one or two years, she's so dependent on someone to watch out for her. Runaway, just such an unbounded soul. So little, so weak, but so full of life. Even though Liberation was my sister, I always felt something towards her. She never grasped how to be an equine but only how to be what she is. The pain and tears she cried so much saying she felt so weighed down by this earth's gravity, and talking about how this world was hell. 'No,' I told myself, shacking my head. 'She'll find a way, she just has too....'

Moving along the ground to taste the vegetation, I thought about my sister and all the things she said. All the times she had almost gone over the edge to end the claustrophobia of feeling within this body. Or how she felt she was living the life of someone else. 'It's like this feeling that this body wasn't meant for me, like- like, everything I do should've been done by someone else because...... Because I know this is no home of mine, but only up there, in the heavens, do I belong for I know what it feels to be weightless and at peace... If only you could understand that all these voices, all these different mes, scream out to end it all. It's so hard to keep myself from ending it, to keep myself here, on this earth, when I have no attachments.... I wish you could understand....'

I understand only because I've moved around these lands so much to find out only this land has drawn me into its grip, but how could someone feel out of place within their own body? Was it a mental illness, or just something greater than that? I couldn't ever figure it out, which bugged me because she was my sister and in pain. Even though I told her pain was only mind over matter, my reason why torture doesn't work on my easily, she said this pain came from inside her, deep inside and could never be cured. Now how could a pain never be cured? How could one just live feeling an fictional pain?

Inhale, and exhale once again and my thoughts are torn from my sister to a new smell caressed in the breathing of the earth. I can feel my ears flicking and veered in every direction involuntary. A soft humming of hooves accompanied the being, meaning the heavy weight was indicative of a fellow of my species. The grace was also unmatched to a feminine, leading tot he conclusion of a male. I did not tense, and merely awaited him to come. It was bound to happen in the claiming lands. And so I waited patiently like a leopard ready to strike its prey.

The humming of hooves stopped, and all became still on this quiet day. His eyes fell upon my pelt as most stallions do when they look over a prospect mare. Soon enough his lyrics flowed into the air. The way the words were formed and use of his dialect, there were roots for his alliance. Dark. Sighing, I lifted up my head keeping myself respectable. Through one maroon hazel and one honey suckle eyes I watched him. "And the devil must have thought my acting was good," I replied smoothly. "For I am not part of his game, or any other's game."

Walking over, I made sure to follow what my mentor had taught me. 'Head up, but not too much, you want to humble. The make sure you carry yourself with a sense of worth and that you aren't another whore or a miss prissy pants. How you come across portrays you and your values right away. And above all, keep an open mind and learn to accept all differences for they are what tore our species apart...' And so, like a good student, I followed her guide lines and walked with a subtle grace laced into my slim appendages.

"My name is Pariah, dear sir," I spoke, halting two or three yards away from him. Bending my head to my chest, I gave a small but meaningful bow to him. Watching with vigilant eyes I spoke once more, "And yours?" It was less of a question than a statement that I wanted, but not needed, to know his name.

Words: 812
Characters: 4240
Completion: complete
Comments: bah, could do better but i'll give it an average.

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