For the Sky (DISCONTINUED)

16 - A Long-awaited Audience

Most pegasi are gray, meaning we have shading around our muzzles and our hooves, our hooves are of an inkier color, usually, our eyes are the same brown you'd see on almost anyone you'd meet. But some pegasi were white, and you could tell the difference.

Sonder was white. A white so brilliant that if he'd rolled in a flour mill, he'd be coated in something a shade darker than him. He looked something like a dove, with pink points around his muzzle and stifle, except with none of the innocence and kindness of one. It was his eyes.

I had talked at length about how the Ceffyl Dwr had no pupils so you're never sure if they are looking straight at you or somewhere else - no mouth and functionally, no eyes, yields the most minimal emotion. Kelpies have irises that are pinkish white, almost something of an albino animal, meaning that there's little difference between them showing the actual whites of their eyes or not - it's a permanently unhinged look, one that multiplies any emotion expressed by a factor of hundreds. Pooka's eyes are dark and deep, with only the glowing ember of a small section of iris - a wolffish appearance.

Sonder scared me more than all three. Perhaps it's because the one time I had met a Ceffyl Dwr in my childhood, my mother protectively hugged me to her side and told me to close my eyes, because kelpies didn't ever wander too far into the kingdom and all I got were crude illustrations in textbooks, because I couldn't even imagine what a rumored "fire demon of a horse" would ever look like. I knew exactly what a pegasus had to look like - I had looked upon many of them, sometimes fondly, sometimes passively, all with acknowledged solidarity.

Sonder unnerved me. He blinked very little, and when he did, it was a slow, mechanical movement. As he looked at me, he had the tiniest quiver of a smile on his face and it made something in his icy blue eyes glimmer. I can't call them ice blue - they were something of a shallow ocean, somewhere in there was a tint of green, giving him an all the more predatory look.

That was it. He was a predator.

I was his prey.

"Astounded by what your prized little stud pulled off there?" he said finally once I had hit an edge in my voice where screaming hurt. "He's not going to be rushing in here to save you anytime soon, you know."

I wished that he laid down on his throne, at least. That I didn't have to see the edge of each and every muscle of his finely bred shoulders, that I didn't have to crane my head upwards to look at him. Even if I had risen to my full height, he would be taller.

"I asked you a question, pest," he spat on the ground, narrowly missing my head. "Speaking might save you a bit of trouble later."

I scowled, curled my lip, and remained silent. I had gotten this far. I had been confident. I had been ready. I should've been ready to play my final part as well.

"I have no idea who you're showing off for," he sighed, tossing his perfectly combed forelock aside. "No one in the Northern kingdom is going to know about your bravery here today, no one is going to sympathize with your petty plight."

Even so. I tensed my jaw, ground my teeth.

"What did you think was going to happen here today?" he edged forward, the perfect drumbeat rhythm of his hooves racing against the tempo of my palpitating heart. He got closer and closer, lowering his head, almost snaking. His head slightly tilted - I could see bags under his eyes, that the blue was stained with bloodshot. I only offered him the most defiant of smiles.

"Answer me!" his voice cracked through the voice like a whip, but nearly as loudly as he bent one shoulder down and slapped me across the face with his wing.

I unceremoniously slid across the hall, a smooth movement across the polished stone surface, stopping only when I hit one of the pillars that held up the roof. I groaned in pain as my broken wing made contact with the base, making it feel like it was getting crushed all over again. Tears rolled into my eyes and I tried to press my forehead against the cool surface of the floor to not show the blinding distress that was mounting in my body.