It had been the taste of change in the air that had led her to leave the familiar surroundings of her home, to begin the long journey away from her home, the hallowed, nurturing place that the motherfather had gifted their kind with. A realization, of a sort, but something that evaded her conscious mind, lay deep within her, had settled long before her birth within the raw instinct and unshakable impulsiveness that she had been blessed with. It sang in her blood now, liquid silver run amok in her veins after such a time of being ignored, repressed, denied. It was a part of her, more important than her eyes, her tail, her legs, that she had embraced only the moment her feet touched solid ground and that had grown steadily more precious to her as she pressed on away from the comfortable, familiar surroundings of her youth, and towards the place of her destiny, that which invariably held all that lay in her future. She did not mourn her loss of the swamp as she left it, her life within the confines that the motherfather given the kimeti to keep them safe and protected, it was something she would remember fondly even as her footfalls became weary and slow. Something to remember as she pressed on.
Streams of silver, as bright as can be, terrible lines over the trees and hills of the swampland on the very night she had left - the motherfather’s ticks falling from the very substance of the sky, the sparkling reflections winking off of her coat and then fading into oblivion as she turned her gaze and began the trek - the night she began that which she had craved her entire life.
It had not been an easy trip for her, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. The grasses she had found on her way were more often than not tough and difficult to eat, far inferior in taste and nutrients to the multitude of gifts of the swamp. It didn’t matter. The prey acted in ways she could not anticipate, and her hunting skills failed her more and more as she came further away from the place of her birth. It didn’t, couldn’t matter. The flora could not be trusted, the risk of poisons and mind-altering intoxicants was high in the brightly-colored, alluring shapes and succulent-smelling plants that populated these increasingly-strange places. It wouldn’t matter after she was finished this. More times than not she found herself hungry when the bright tick laid to rest for the night, and she did the same. Her pelt, once sleek and shining as if she had been coated in spun rainfall, now hung ragged and lank against her terribly thin frame. But still, her mind - her very being - rejoiced at every step she took away from the life she had once led. Often, she paused in the early dawn and peered at herself in the streaky depths of clear water, to see what she could of herself.
Streams of silver, as bright as can be, worrying even as the currents twisted themselves around the very substance of her surface. Not the physical self, but the representative. Not what she was, but what others saw of her. And as she saw the reminder of who she had been, it prompted her to go on, to shed the old being, to ascend to something new.
And as she began to change, so too did the land. The expanses of fields gave way to hills, which in turn were replaced with vast streches of sparsely-vegetated plains. And she journeyed on, through and past this alien terrain, the song of promise crying bright in her blood and lending her the energy to go on as she moved past these climes, as she metamorphosed along with her surroundings, shedding bits of who she had been, and became who she was. The plant life eventually faded to a point of almost-nothingness - the grasses that had nurtured her were gone, the meadows long since passed on her journey. The trees whose barks she could trust, gone to be replaced by squat, long-spined plants that reminded her of some of the drawings of insects she had made back in the swamps. Plants that reminded her of the porcupines and hedgehogs she had happened across as a young doe, had watched with curiosity as she tried to figure out a way to ambush the things, before eventually giving up on the endeavour with frustrated exasperation. And, most importantly, the water - the water that had run thin and low and clear from the dark, deep, rich browns and greens she was used to, disappeared entirely, replaced with phantom illusions of the stuff she now craved.
Streams of silver, as bright as can be, washed over the ground, so parched that it fell apart, and made rustling susurrations when the wind cared to move it around, treating it like a simple plaything. She galloped towards one, feeling the pain and tiredness fall away like a trinket as she tried to catch the fleeting illusions the sun wrought upon the sand.
And her hunger continued to grow with her tiredness and her exhaustion was kept at bay only by the pull of what drove her. Her already strained body was ravaged by the pace she set, from a journey she had not been prepared for. But she couldn’t bring herself to care about the changes. She had become so much more, even as she became less. From the bright tick’s first rays of light to the faintest of his evening motes, she trekked on, stopping momentarily to partake of the strange plants and slow-moving lizards she was now desperate enough to partake of. And soon enough, a blurry, bright, flickering line appeared on the ring-edge of the world, and she couldn’t help but to raise her head and cry out in joy, her parched voice cracking as she let loose the uluations of her emotion. And that was when she began to gallop, for that line of silver that flickered and moved, but didn’t disappear. Even in the darkest depths of night, the pale-tick and the fleas lit the flickering line enough that she could follow by them, if she walked slowly enough that she didn’t catch herself and stumble in the swell and ebb of sand, of the undulating dunes that had slowly come to define her, and she even now strained to shed. And she kept walking, fighting one leg and then another forward, until she found that silver stream ran long and wide and deep, as far as could be seen.
Streams of silver, as bright as can be, washed across her vision, as the rhythmic, soothing lap of water cooled her burning hide. And it was a beautiful thing.