In the morning, Sparkles awoke to the sound of strange creatures āsingingā and the wind brushing through the trees. (āBirds,ā she reminded herself.) She packed away her pillows and blankets - how they all fit in her knapsack, she couldnāt guess - and propped the tent flap open, just in case someone wanted to say hello. No one ever did, but just in case, she left it open.
Then she took her hair out of its braid and decorated her horns: necklaces, bracelets, ribbons, amulets, a locket without a picture, some lace, some bells. She took down her tent and joined the others at the morning fire.
Prax was an amazing cook; she didnāt know the names of the dishes he handed her, but after eating oatmeal every morning for years of her life, she loved each one. Today was also oatmeal, but his version of oatmeal was good, too. It had flavors. That was a word sheād learned recently. Flavors. Everything had flavors, sheād learned, but some had less than others. Praxās oatmeal wasnāt at all like the oatmeal at home.
She usually ate in silence. There was friendly talk and chatter around her, but she didnāt often feel the need to join in. The amount of people still scared her, and sometimes she wanted to put her tent back up and eat aloneā¦ But at the same time, it was nice to be near people, to hear the voices and laughter. As she ate, she tried to remember everyoneās names: Prax, Merchant, Argo, Vella, Scā¦.sssā¦Scio! Scio, Machine, Ren, Aethelā¦
When they began walking for the day, Sparkles walked near Praxās wagon, and when she got tired, sat on the back. She didnāt know why she got tired faster than everyone else, but she was sure sheād learn. She didnāt know why she was never hot - sometimes she saw people complain about the heat - but she suspected it had something to do with her flowy clothing.
Prax was good company, but she didnāt like to bother him. At the last town, sheādā¦ ahā¦ acquired a book; thatās what she did when she rested on the wagon. Sparkles couldnāt read, but this book had some nice pictures. And she could guess at what the words meant. There was a picture she liked of a mothstallion cuddling a friendly-looking man, who looked a bit like the Merchant. The words below it were
A hungry Mothstallion smothers its prey before consumption.
At least one of those words had to mean ācuddle,ā and āmothstallion.ā She was certain of that, since they were nearest to the picture. Perhaps when they stopped later, she could ask the Merchant to point out which was which.
Around noon, she ate a chunk of bread from last nightās dinner, so as not to inconvenience anyone.
When they stopped for the evening, she was worn out, as she was every evening. It seemed to her that she could longer without resting, though, and didnāt need to sleep as soon as it got dark. She joined the others at the fire and took off all her decorations, dropping them gently into her drawstring bag, and combed her hair while she listened to people talk.
She stayed awake just long enough to put her hair in a braid and pitch her tent, and then she curled up in her blankets. It was safe to sleep, tonight; she dreamed of cuddly mothstallions and singing birds.
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