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 Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 2:22 pm
 Symphony shook her head, clearing the hair out of her eyes. Today had been peaceful, or as peaceful as it could get for a mutant. Scanning the ground, she saw a lone apple tree growing on a cliff. With an excited whinny, she spiraled down from the sky and landed softly on the edge of the cliff, her hooves bending the soft supple springtime grass. She plucked a ripe apple from the tree and munched on it contetidly. The sun had just risen, dawn arriving. She missed the night, with its soft dark hues, and mysterious air. But dawn brought a fresh start, a new begining, and new things.
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Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 3:38 pm
The rising sun sheened across Nirvana's fur, setting it to shining with a snowy glitter. He had been awake to see the first changing of the sky but only now stirred himself to movement. He took a few stiff steps and stretched, taking more once he felt ready. As he began to walk he browsed from the shrubs and low trees he passed. What a beautiful day. It brought a smile to his face. There was beauty even in the storms but days like this came so seldom they had to be enjoyed.
He lifted his legs high to avoid letting his long fetlock fur drag through the damp grass. If it became soaked too early in the day it would weigh down his feet and make it harder to walk throughout it. While Nirvana had no problem with most distractions to his random wanderings, heavy feet was not one of the more entertaining distractions to be found.
The sun shone upon him more brightly as he emerged from the forest into an open field of grass on the edge of a cliff. He was alone here in the desolation and beauty. He breathed air out through his nose in a happy sigh but then drew it inwards again with soft surprise. He wasn't alone. He saw a pair of brown wings unfurled in the morning light and then the mare that they belonged to.
Watching her, it seemed that she completed the scene in front of him. She was the missing element to the quiet beauty of the landscape. He tilted his head to admire and regard this scene, making no move to either hide himself or move towards her.
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Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 7:44 pm
Symphony lifted her head curiously, a strange scent was upon the breeze. She turned from side to side, and froze as she saw another soquili watching her. A chill ran down her spine as she saw he was a grounded. Groundeds were the source of her pain, and she had worked so hard to forget, but now this, this thing had brought it all back. Wearily, her ears flicked back, and her eyes lost their sparkle. Dawn was also a time for bringing back the past, and the future.
Edgy, she took a couple steps back, and acted like she hadn't noticed the grounded standing there. Maybe if she didn't aknolege him, he'd go away, and leave me to my own misery she thought woefully, taking another halfhearted bite of the apple. Somehow, it didn't taste as sweet as before.
She snuck another look at the grounded, and was intrugued to see the feathers upon his head, and the length of his ankle hair. She knew she had seen such a thing before, but where? She racked her brain. Certaintly this was no ordinary grounded. Perhapes he was different from the others. Maybe she should take a chance. She called out, "Hello?" and couldn't help but put a musical note into the simple word, a tone of hope.
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Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 9:25 am
Nirvana's smile grew more focused when he heard the beautiful call of the beautiful mare. She was so birdlike, from the way she sang at him to the feathers that adorned her tail and wings. He briefly wondered if she might be some form of angeni but comparing his mother to her he thought not. He hoped to find more angenis some day to see if there was some connection in their shared heritage... but today did not seem like that day. That so, he wasn't disappointed at all to see that the mare wasn't angeni. She was what she was and held herself with just as much dignity as his angeni mother.
"Hello," he finally answered back. Though he didn't sing the word it was filled with friendly amiability. "It is a beautiful day, isn't it?" The warmth of his words made the statement a truth and not just a pleasantry. Beautiful days just begged to be shared with someone... but it was premature to be asking whether or not the lady would enjoy company.
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Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 11:10 pm
Symphony smiled slightly at the sincere tone of the grounded stallions voice. It was nice, not just a necessary response, but more of a heartfelt one. She admired the feathers adorning his head, they were quite dashing. She felt an envious twang at her heart, she wanted a pair now. She inwardly laughed at what she was thinking, it was so, so trivial compared to the big scheme of things. His answer didn't have a musical note in it, so she was a little disappointed. But then again, no others she had met had the same musicalness that she did.
"It is a rather nice day, though rarely I've seen better." She felt a quirky smile on her face, it was so strange, to be exchanging weather comments with a grounded. Up in the sky, the weather took on a totally different meaning. What might be a nice breeze down on the ground, could be hurricane force winds a thousand feet or so up higher.
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Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 10:18 am
Nirvana noticed the interesting array of expressions passing across the mare's face. From her response he thought that there might be things she was thinking and not saying... but that was hardly something to get upset about. It meant that she was a thoughtful mare which would make for the more interesting discussion. Not that she wasn't interesting on his own. He felt a brief pang of regret that it was considered rude to stare. He would have enjoyed time to regard her and all the intricacies of her form. He'd have to settle for trying to admire the intricacy of her words instead. He could start by asking her a question, one that he often pondered.
He tilted his head to turn one red eye upwards to look at the sky. Overhead fluffy white cumulus clouds drifted sluggishly by and the sun shone brightly behind them. "Rarely you have seen better, you say... Would you say that it makes the sky above us the 'real blue sky?" He smiled in softly bemused contemplation. "I have often wondered which face, which form of the sky is the most true, if such a thing even exists."
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Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 10:26 am
Symphony was delighted at the question. This grounded was indeed much more intriguing than just a regular grounded. She pondered her answer, for being up in the sky was such an indiscribable experience, she couldn't find the right words. She started slowly, struggling a bit to make herself clear, "The sky is...hm" She broke off, then continued more strongly, "The sky is its own body, it is neither blue nor colorless." She smiled slightly, and found the perfect comparison,
"If I was up in the sky, far up high, and looking down below, I would see the earth to be a big flat brownish green thing, with blue separating it. Would you say that is the true face of the earth? Looking like a rotting vegtable?" She giggled a little, and finished, "The truest face of anything you can only find by being there, in the moment." She streached her wings once, they had become stiff after so much flying, then just being folded in.
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Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 11:28 am
Nirvana felt a moment of pleasure at her response. He had been correct in assuming that she would be able to give him an insightful conversation. He listened to her speaking of the earth below from high above and could see it clearly in his mind's eye. He had never thought to ask his flighted family about what the world looked like from the sky. In retrospect, it was an oversight.
"Very true." He smiled with a lightheartedly ironic smile. "Alas, those of us without wings may only speculate on the true nature of what we cannot experience. Of course..." He gave a clear and airy laugh. "I also cannot claim to understand half the things I have experienced." Even his own family he made no claim to understand. He wasn't even certain if he understood himself all the time.
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Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 4:44 pm
Symphony twitched her tail feathers appreciatively. For a grounded, he really did seem to understand her point of view about the sky, and the freedom it offered. Though it wasn't limitless freedom. It was freedom with shackles, though many thought she was free, she was still chained. It was now that Symphony realized that she did not even know this strangers name. She dipped her head graciously, and said with a trill, "I did not realize, I don't even know your name. I am Symphony"
Her eyes sparkled, as they always did when she told someone her name. It was as though she was giving them a part of her self, true, a very very small part, but sharing was caring, was it not?
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Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 8:30 am
Nirvana's face lit up with a smile upon hearing her name. "Symphony? How charmingly appropriate. My name is Nirvana and I'm afraid that I've completely forgotten what my grandmother told me it meant." He'd been only a foal when she had explained it and hadn't thought it important enough then to pay attention to. Ah well, thus is the way of foals.
He had to admit to himself, he did enjoy Symphony's company. That in itself wasn't terribly uncommon. He would be hard pressed to think of any soquili that he didn't find some enjoyment in speaking to.... but that wasn't quite the feeling. It wasn't that she was a kindred spirit either... perhaps more of a complementary spirit? That sounded a little more like it but didn't seem like the perfect wording either. Nirvana's gaze grew slightly unfocused as he pondered this, not even paying attention as the wind blew a strand of his mane across his face.
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Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 8:39 am
Symphony tilted her head and smiled quirkily as Nirvana said he had forgotten what his name ment. She thought for a while, then started slowly, "I'm pretty sure I know what it means." She trailed a hoof in the dirt, digging through her mind to find the meaning. She said, "I'm pretty sure Nirvana means a place open to all, a safe haven, a paradise, where anyone can be welcome with open arms." She sighed longingly, that was what she wanted, a Nirvana of her own, where no one would shout and point, or say cruel things behind her back when they thought she wasn't listening.
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Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 9:32 am
Nirvana snapped back to attention at the familiar words. They might not be the exact same ones as uttered by his grandmother when he was a foal but he heard echoes of her voice in the description. A safe haven... paradise... freedom. He remembered now snatches of what she had said... words from another time and place.
"Accept your name and remember that Nirvana is not a place that can be found on this earth that we walk," she had told him. "It is instead a place in your heart, one that is always open to those who know the path. Nirvana is rest. Nirvana is joy. Nirvana is..."
"Freedom." This last word he said aloud. "Nirvana is all these things." He tilted his head back and smiled at the sky as it was reflected in his red eyes. "You've reminded me. My grandmother explained my name to me when I was sad for my lack of wings." He turned from the sky to turn his smile to Symphony, bemusement at an ironic recall crinkling the edges. "Both my parents and my sister have wings so I was a little.. confused." He laughed a little, remembering those feelings.
"I suppose it is the nature of foals to make large of things like that... but my grandmother told me that Nirvana meant that I didn't need wings to be free." He looked up at the sky one more time, an inescapable fondness filling him for it's vastness. "So much philosophy in a name... "
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Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 9:41 am
Symphony tilted her head curiously, this grounded was certaintly quite the thinker. But he was right, so much philosophy in a name. She guessed it was because he needed a special name, being the odd one out in his family. It almost broke her heart, being so close to loved ones, yet being so, so far away. She definatly agreed with the freedom part, because that was what Nirvana was. Everyone has their own nirvana, its just a question of getting to it. But when will I find mine? She wondered to herself, a little woefully.
She chuckled, "Yes, foals do tend to do that. Give them a 2 minute timeout, and they'll start screaming that you hate them. Quite funny actually. And no matter how many times you explain something to them, they'll ask it again." She smiled, she had known quite a few foals with traits like that, but maybe that was what made them so endearing.
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Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 12:20 pm
Nirvana nodded to Symphony's words but he was still lost in thought and in the arching blue skies overhead. Their conversation thus far had been a short one but it had already filled his mind with things that he longed to contemplate. He rarely was so inspired by much longer meetings as he was by this short one. His eyes were unfocused and distant even as the wind tugged strands of his mane to dance before them.
"Yes... hm...." He murmured the words quietly. "If you wouldn't mind.. I will take some time to think upon what you have said." He smiled, hoping that it would make his sudden departure a friendly one. "I am afraid that if we were to continue that my mind would still be elsewhere and you'd have a rather dull conversation."
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Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 7:55 pm
Symphony smiled warmly, this grounded had the endearing trait of those foals, though not the same one. She would be happy to see him again on any occasion. Idely, she raised a wing and plucked a particularly beautiful looking primary feather. She held it out to Nirvana, and spoke, "A wind will always know where her feathers are." It was a sign of respect, and maybe more. Only her closest friends had one of her feathers.
She raised her wings, and said, "Until next time Nirvana?" Then took to the skies, knowing she would see him again. After all, she still had to look for her own nirvana, her own haven.
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