The Academy: SEEKING A TEACHER; ANY

s e l e n e

“The night walked down the sky with the moon in her hand.”
-Frederic Lawrence Knowles-
Selene does not wish for greatness. Her name would die with her someday, even if it was not now or anytime in the near future. She was a simple creature with simple ambitions. But in her defense I will point out that oftentimes, greatness is found in the humblest of origins. Her bloodlines are nothing spectacular, her mother and father were names not known. Perhaps it was her humble origins that give her this nature. Nothing had ever been expected of her, and so she didn’t try or yearn for extraordinary things. Her wishes were simple things, though they were secrets that she would defend with her life. Selene was simply Selene and nothing more. I expect that someday she will find herself a much different being than she is today. Time changed many things. There were many possibilities when it came to Selene. She was young, naļve, untrained and feral. Her heart had no limits, there was no commitment she had to fulfill. One day, there would be differences in who she was now, but that would come in time. She would learn, one way or another.

In Ni’Srilan, she was nothing just as now. She had no real friends and she spoke to few, but watched most. I expect that they would call her shy, which was a possibility with her nature. They would one day call her desert bloom, a name in which she had always confided in. She would not be plagued with nostalgia as most, though that was her present mind speaking. The mare had no memory of where she came from or the people she had known before. What’s past was past. You could not change it, so why long for it? Now was just fine for Selene, and she wanted to keep it that way.

It seems though, that fate would lead young Selene to her destiny this morning. A roadrunner had crossed her path, and with her foolish curiosity Selene had followed to the end of the desert. And it was her curiosity that led her feet beyond the vast edges of Ni’Srilan. There was no real purpose to her walk, though she had already chosen her path she had not intended to seek a teacher just yet. But fate had decided for her, which was what she really wanted. Selene lived in denial sometimes. She enters the Academy with little conviction, simply a girl wandering the area around her home. There was nothing more interesting than her desert, but curiosity leads her to many places. Selene had developed a love for the sands immediately upon arriving. But then again, she is built for it. Her ancient ancestors had forged her to be the desert bloom that she was now. The desert was her beloved home, and that love was destined by her blood. It was vast and held many places for her to run and be free. Selene even loved it’s hostility.

Her hooves fall at an even pace, not rushed or slowed, simple and rhythmic, quarters swaying to no particular beat. This was new to her. All of her life before now had been simple, wandering wherever her heart would take her. Selene was a dreamer in a sense. Her heart was a hopeful thing that trusted all too easily and learned not quickly enough. She was kind enough, but I daresay kindness was not something that could save her. I suppose her curiosity would be her demise. But Selene was too fast, she thought. She would outrun danger in the blink of an eye. It was this sort of thinking that made her fearless and foolish all at once. It was this thinking that led her to the Academy (however by chance peaceful it was). She did not carefully place each step but rather confidently marched into the ruins that surrounded it. Selene had nothing to fear. Her giggle echoed in this silence, and no doubt it would not go unheard. She halts only to rest herself for a moment. It is then that she hears it, her head snapping upwards and her ears flicking behind her. A soft rustle, nothing more, but Selene knows that rustle. It was the muffled sound of hooves, and with that she turns, facing the darkness where soon a face would emerge. “Who…who’s there?”