Ni'Srilan: The Desert: your halo's slippin' down...

the mare pondered the scrubby plant in front of her.

she wasn't even so sure it was a plant? perhaps it was a small tree. regardless, the crispy tan-ness of it all looked kind of interesting to her.

she nibbled it a bit, found it largely unoffensive, wrapped her mouth around a piece, and attempted to rescue a chunk of it for appropriate chewing, as all sustenance needed to be subjected to.

she liked sustenance. much of it was quite delicious; eating any chance she got was one of her most beloved of hobbies.

this plan was more difficult than she forsaw, so she stomped it down with a hoof and tried to process as much of it as she could with her teeth.

she snorted, displacing sand near her muzzle, and abandoned her hasty nibbling, shying away from the shredded plant with great enthusiasm.

hmm. certainly wasn't something she'd try again if she could avoid it. the aftertaste? horrible.

she circled it suspiciously, and then set off at the trot, lifting her feet high, regarding the sand trying to steal her hooves with great consternation.

she stopped abruptly when she saw hoofprints a few minutes into her prancing journey.

her ears, frantically flicking to find the owners of these prints, betrayed her thoughts; her body, rigid with fear, hooves splayed, was eager for the verdict.

hoofprints meant others. others...

oh, this was no good. the wheels were spinning, spinning... trying to find a conclusion. hard to do when the hamster's paralyzed with fear, hmm?

our heroine could not take another step, because there were others.

our heroine, likewise, was growing weary of being lonely.

there was but one thing to do:

run.

she picked a direction that did not follow the tracks, and put her heart into fleeing as fast as possible--one more familiar to the territory would probably recommend that she flee in the opposite direction in order to escape. alas, c'est la vie.

she couldn't avoid others forever...