Her eyes in the dark shone an eerie red light on the plants around her. It was nice to be out of the desert, but at the same time not. Even in her own time, all this grass and fuzzy creatures were strange to her. She felt out of her element. She was a princess of the desert. Not fit for life in the forest or meadows. Even an oasis in the desert had the dangers of sandstorms and scent of the dry sand about them. This, however…It smelled of rain. Of flowers. Of life. It brought back memories of when she was a filly, visiting the gardens of her father’s palace. She had always yearned to see these distant lands from her own. The gardens and oasis’ of the desert were filled with life, but not like this. Not many would brave the desert climate to reach them. And whatever had was soon prey for the carnivores living nearby. So the balance of life was always small or average. Not what she had desired to see.
Now she was here. And she couldn’t enjoy it. Though her mouth was open, it didn’t matter. She couldn’t taste anything. Didn’t need to. Her organs still remained in their jars back in her tomb. With nothing to carry them in, she had left them there. One day, she would like to go back for them. They wouldn’t make her life any easier. Wouldn’t help make her live, again. But she wanted them, just the same. It was like only having a part of her with her. Which was perfectly true. Her shell was here, but what kept the shell alive was elsewhere.
To her right the wind picked up, rustling the loose bandages around her hooves. It shifted the leaves on the trees, reaching her ears as a whisper that almost sounded like words. Nefertari ignored this, less concerned about things encountered now that she no longer had a life to lose. An advantage to being dead, to be sure. Not even when the whispers became more clear did she stop moving her hooves across the grass. Her curiosity was being peaked with each word, her ears moving towards the sound. But her pace stayed the same. Sounded like some heartsick mare calling for her lover. The mummy had no interest in such things better fit for an adolescent.
It was hard to ignore the white shape that swooped down on her, however.
A raspy growl escaped from between the Queen’s dry lips, irritated that someone would have the nerve to attack her. The skies currently were clear, but the sound of whispers was all around her. Any normal Star would have been scared out of their wits. Not this one. She stopped, nose pointed at the stars, awaiting the trickster to show their face.
”Where were you?”
The speaker was not familiar to Nefertar. Nor was she aware of any existing appointments she had been late for. Aside from Morrigan, the skeletal mare she had met not too long ago, the mummy didn’t know anyone else. It seemed obvious she was being mistaken for someone else. The question was, who? How many undead like her were there, for someone to be getting her mixed up with one?
Behind her, something emerged from the shadows of the trees. Its body and eyes were covered by a thick, black cloak, the ears just tiny mountains on top of the head. The muzzle poked out of the hood, pure white, the lower lip bloody at the corners. It was whispering low, too low for the undead mare to hear clearly. From the pitch of the voice, she guessed it was another mare. One who appeared to be hurt, hurting, or…
Deceased? It was another mare, definitely, but where her legs should be was nothing below the knee. Where her hooves should have been, connecting to the grass beneath her, was nothing but air.
”You are not him,” the ghostly mare said more clearly, rising higher into the sky. Nefertari narrowed her eyes at the stranger, keeping her in sight as the phantom moved closer, the Queen moving back with as equal steps as she could manage, not being able to see how slow or quick the white mare was moving. ”What have you done?” Without warning, the mare was gone, only to reappear behind Nefertari and swoop down on her so suddenly, all she felt was coldness so great, it would be enough to make most faint. Most, however, were alive. All it did to Nefertari was make her lose track of the direction she was in.
When the coldness subsided, she found herself alone with nothing but the normal sound of the wind whistling through the branches.
