(no subject)
There's no real sun here, just a bright spot in the glowing green canopy of leaves. Beneath them, Rose rides through her dreams, galloping down paths twisting and narrow and somehow each unique. She's in a hurry to see where it goes, even if it gets dark.
This is a place of branching paths, of a million ifs, where the leafs brush against each other in a cunning breeze like the whisper of pages, and the roots and vines stretch and grow, busting with life.
And down here--here's a place she's been before, a time or two or three. The shady edges, where the forest (call it ka) gives way to a clearing (call it char). She can tell because the path is getting broader, worn smooth by a billion billion feet. She can tell because the trees thin out, and things move and chuff out in the underbrush. She can tell it in the air; by the thin sweet hint of kidsmoke.
Something keeps drawing her back to this place, and she knows it's no good for her, but here she is again. She checks her horse (the dream of her favorite, a bay from the White Plain country club, the dream of how he would have run and run in the endless plain of horse-dreams. An ungelded dream, to get right down to it.) and looks around.
It's getting dark. Sun's going down, somewhere, maybe. Fun is fun, and done is done, and now it's time to race the devil home. She brings the horse around and kicks into a gallop, heading for home, where the sun is rising, if you can dig it. Just the reverse of here.
Through grey shadows on the edges of things, she rides, and grins to feel the wind on her face. To be alive.
This is a place of branching paths, of a million ifs, where the leafs brush against each other in a cunning breeze like the whisper of pages, and the roots and vines stretch and grow, busting with life.
And down here--here's a place she's been before, a time or two or three. The shady edges, where the forest (call it ka) gives way to a clearing (call it char). She can tell because the path is getting broader, worn smooth by a billion billion feet. She can tell because the trees thin out, and things move and chuff out in the underbrush. She can tell it in the air; by the thin sweet hint of kidsmoke.
Something keeps drawing her back to this place, and she knows it's no good for her, but here she is again. She checks her horse (the dream of her favorite, a bay from the White Plain country club, the dream of how he would have run and run in the endless plain of horse-dreams. An ungelded dream, to get right down to it.) and looks around.
It's getting dark. Sun's going down, somewhere, maybe. Fun is fun, and done is done, and now it's time to race the devil home. She brings the horse around and kicks into a gallop, heading for home, where the sun is rising, if you can dig it. Just the reverse of here.
Through grey shadows on the edges of things, she rides, and grins to feel the wind on her face. To be alive.