Missed

Eugene, you flew away and left my saddle here, instead of taking it back to the stables. As I stare at it, I think to myself, how I misjudged our relationship. In the beginning, I thought you were so proper and guarded. Now all I see is the best thing that ever happened to me. You balance me, keep me grounded when I am too dizzy to fly and take me to great heights when I need to be swept away. You are the ocean and the stars and the sun. Thank you for being my friend.

The Taking of Spades

Eugene here. The Girl has receded into the fortress walls, hoping to diminish shame and hide for a while in the starkness of The Grey. Sometimes the best thing to do when a war is being waged within is to withhold action until the storm passes.

She spoke tonight of the colors of her youth. How her first memory was of putrid violet-brown flying insects that invaded her unhappy home... but how her second memory was of a paintbrush in her hand and images drawn with a child's innocence and wonder. I listened without judgment, as she steadied herself against a large painted canvas. I dug in my hooves and stowed my wings. I knew what to expect, I'd seen this before...

You see, I've been so busy with Race Training and new recruits that I have not had as much time to check in with The Girl. Imagine my dismay, when I saw her tonight: a new smoldering fire in the green sparkle of her eyes and fresh sadness heavy on her shoulders. She was glowing with familiar emotion but also something that I am not sure I recognize still... might have been excitement and passion, but partly it seemed shame and anger. She talked of missed opportunities, chances never taken, risks avoided and of confidence feigned. I tried to convince her to take flight with me, that a moonlight adventure would restore her spirits, but she gracefully declined, citing the paint on her hands and feet. Then she started singing one of her favorite songs..."Where I live, there's this lady who walks everywhere on her hands... doesn't trust where her feet want to take her..." I remained silent. I simply didn't know what to say. She then spread a deck of cards on the floor, and attempted to guess the location of the Spades.

After watching her feverishly flip cards for a while, The Girl asked me leave her alone. She was pleasant enough in her request that I knew she just wasn't quite ready to fly. However, it would seem that I need to clear my calendar for the foreseeable future to tend to this new chapter of the The Girl's life. The last time I saw The Girl in this Frame of Mind, she attempted to leap from the saddle to the sun.

Regressional

Let's go back a bit. Long before the airing of grievance. Before she defined my future, and before he left this earth. Before I pressed my hand against dusty rock walls and traced the origin of my being.

There was the energy that amassed and came bursting forth. There were shining lights across the sky, trailed by pink ribbons and golden flecks of sun that rained down like Midas glitter on our heads. And he held me in his arms... her dark presence shaking the earth beneath us both as I clung to him for safety. Rockets were silent in the wake of the roar of her envy. As long as he was alive I was safe, and I traveled to the ends of the earth, holding tight to those sky-tossed ribbons and my skin glowing in the golden flames. And she chased me, haunted me, and invaded every crevice and dream I ever had. Pulling me away from the ocean, pulling me down into the pit of her feigned foreign accents, dime-store veils and finger cymbals. She swirled there, and I learned to accept that victims would often enter the pit and find a friend in me.

So I climbed out, my ribbons tattered and heavy with caked red clay... clawing at the walls and calling his name. She silenced him like she silenced the rockets. All hail the witch of the unending woe-is-me game.

It wasn't until many, many years later that I realized that while I was in the pit, she carved a hole in me. A hole where others would crawl into and hide, seeking shelter and release from their own obligations and choices. I excavated intruders and cauterized the wound. I sewed protective coverings over the cavity. I did all I could to protect myself, and I escaped.

But every now and then, I forget that the wound never heals, and that I am as fragile in your hands as I was in hers. His lessons were cut short, and he was a loving, peaceful man. He wasn't of the land, but of the sea, and the only legacy he offered me... the only peaceful, invulnerable retreat he disclosed to me... was the ocean. She cannot reach me there, and neither can you.

So make your own choices, feed your own dreams, succumb to your own fears, wallow in your failures and rejoice in your own successes.

I am out to sea.

Officially.