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The sun shone high in the sky, bright like a lightbulb gleaming over the frosted, winter-touched sand and making the beach sparkle like a diamond. The waves, never freezing, lapped gently at the sand, cresting in soft foamy lines, almost rhythmically touching the hooves of the small but stocky black mare standing at the very edge of the surf. Her gold and silver hair was tossed by the wind, having grown long and a bit unkempt, but…she liked it. It made her feel wild and strong and beautiful. Anansi tipped her head to the sky, watching a lone gull soar on white feathered wings, flapping and gliding and swooping, its cry lonely. She knew that feeling. Her heart used to be as lonely as that gull, but lately… It might not’ve been love, but maybe love had never been in the cards for her. Maybe that was just the way life went? But with Pavitra and his family, she found companionship. Her days of flirting and flinging were over. She was happy and that was all that mattered.
X
She flew through the sky, light and fleeting on the cold winter’s breeze as it rippled through her pale feathers. The black mottled tips of her wings caught the wind and she dove through the air, giving a small spin as her curls were tossed and wind-ruffled. Rixton laughed, a giddy, breathless sound as she flew across miles of frost-topped golden sand, and beyond the beach? The sea. Oh, it was magnificent--though perhaps not as magnificent as she was, but still. How could one compare to a beauty such as Rixton herself. Another breathy laugh, her knees bending as if to run through the air, ears pinned as she picked up speed and streamlined herself through the air.
A gleam of something dark caught her eye, sparkling in the sun, and Rixton turned. Below was a black ground mare and at her legs? Was that armor? Had she found another knight? Giving a snort, she dove towards the ground, landing gracefully with a soft thud behind the darker mare. “What are you looking at?” she quipped, following the others’ gaze to the endless sea.
X
Anansi caught the sight of a flash of purple and tawny wings right as the other mare landed, hooves thumping in the hardened sand. “What are YOU looking at?” she replied, almost a lazy drawl as she turned to greet the larger but obviously younger mare head on. She tipped one hoof up, the armor at her ankles gleaming soft in the sun, and when the purple-haired girl looked at them, she smirked. “My family apparently comes from a line of healers and knights, hence the glam.” She tipped a hoof up, then placed it back down, sturdy in the sand. “I’d say the name’s Anansi, at your service--but I’m not a knight. I’m just me.”
X
Rixton snorted softly at the mare’s sardonic edge. “Anansi,” she murmured, taking the chance to circle the dark-pelted mare, taking in the little details--the fact that Anansi seemed older but not as wise as her years suggested; the fact that she was obviously out of shape, her form soft instead of lean and muscular; and the fact that the mare sorely needed a native to brush that rat’s nest she called hair. “Rixton,” she said with the smallest of nods. “I come from a line of thieves and drama queens…though I happen to be neither. Well…” A laugh, sharp and fluting. “I suppose I have my dramatic moments.” She tossed her mane, violet bangs falling over her hard amber eyes. “But really--what exactly are you looking at? All I see is the sea--and while it’s beautiful and vast…it’s just that. Beautiful and vast and endless…unattainable beauty. Unlike…say, ourselves.” She smiled, though it was sharp at the edges. “Though I’m sure you’re a…refined old mare. Surely you have a mate already. You aren’t just wandering the world alone. Because that would be a shame.”
X
Anansi blinked, surprised by the blasé tone of the younger mare, a mare who was obviously used to having everything and anything she wanted, getting her way most if not all of the time. At one time in the past, Anansi would’ve been friends with a girl like her, because she’d been a girl like her. “What…so the ocean is unattainable now?” she snarked, tossing her head. It was when the other mare prodded into personal business--that’s what got Anansi’s hackles up. She pinned her steely gray eyes on the wind mare, ears flattening against her skull. “I think that my life is none of your business, Rixton.” She spoke her name coolly, calmly. “I know your type…” It was a hard pill to swallow, to see herself in that young, spry mare. To remember all the boys she flirted with, sleeping around night after night…
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