Lucid Blood

Ch 4

I didn’t know what to expect to find when I stepped out of the door, but what I saw was a nice surprise. The ground wasn’t lava, or razors, something painful. The sky wasn’t dark and rolling, dragons twisting through the sky and snatching up people, or an unearthly white that made me go blind.

We followed a stone path, grey with twisting blue lines through it like tiny jewels. And the grass was sharp looking, reflective like glass but when I brushed my fingers over it, it was softer than any grass I‘d ever felt.

And the sky overhead was like any normal sky, if you ignored the weird bird-bat creature which fluttered too close together and made beautifully, horrid screams.

There was no fence around the horses, but they seemed to know not to go too far into the trees.

“See that horse” Matt says softly, pointing to the closest horse. “That’s Ecassa. I got her from Germany” he says smoothly.

I blanch, nearly choking. “You did not! There are no horses like that in Germany!” I cry.

The horse he was talking about –Ecassa- was white, mane and tail made of rolling, coiling smoke an exotic red purple. Its eyes, black as crow’s feathers turned to us, and I was surprised to see half of her face wore black lines which run along her face like tribal tattoos. Then she screamed a high pitched sound unlike a horse sound I’d even heard and turned towards us.

The horse stops half a meter in front of us, pawing at the ground with shiny black hooves, snorting and nosing at the air. She steps forward but jerks back, screaming her frustration and pawing at the ground again. “What’s wrong with her?”

“She wants a pat” Matts says like it was obvious, and then nods the ground. At the horse’s hooves was a thin line of dirt, black lines and symbols burnt into the ground. “The horses can’t cross it”

“Can I?” I ask, watching the pacing horses. She shakes her head, smoky mane dancing down her neck in wisps before fading into nothing at the ends.

Matt’s eyes cut towards the other horses which seemed content on grazing on the boarder of the trees with silver leaves like knives. “Yeah, until the other horses come over”

I step over the boarder keeping the horses in and reach out for the white horse. She pushes her face against mine, snorting a sigh like sound. I step onto her side, brushing my hand down her neck. The black lines twisted along her face and onto her neck, making her shoulder and part of her chest. “Why only until the other horses come” I ask, smoothing my hand over the horse’s neck. She was warm and soft, muscle flexing under my fingers.

She was like nothing I’d ever seen.

“The other horses aren’t very…fond of me” Matts wonders over, looking at me from over Ecassa’s back. He touches her shoulder which starts her muscles to flick and twitch. The horse snorts and turns to shover her head against Matt’s arm. He pushes her head away.

“What’d you do to them?” I laugh. Ecassa seemed friendly, so why weren’t the other horses?

As if sensing my question Matt looks towards the herd. “Ecassa was Iraz’s horse years ago. She hates him, but doesn’t mind me or Emma. The animals here…” He frowns and turns to me, thinking over his words. “They aren’t exactly ‘brought’. Most didn’t come through the portal like you did. Only two were, and they were like your horses for a week or so, then they changed” He smooths a hand over Ecassa ribs, almost fondly.

“And the others?”

Ecassa grunts and paws at the ground with a hard hoof. She pushes her face towards me, breathing on my arm until I reach out and stroke her head.