The strange rock pierced her dreams once more and she followed an instinct she couldn't shake and found herself in that clearing once more. She found herself wanting to be close to the ominous object of her past. She went to the stone that she had stood upon that time she nearly forgot and, scratching away a little growth with a pointed hoof, she stared at it. She hadn't been one of the kin to complete the puzzle, but she'd witnessed it, the light still ingrained in her mind's eye. The strange symbols now stood clear to her as if she'd carved them herself.
She laughed, a high, inconsistent tittering, at the thought of something so foreign now being familiar, even nostalgic. That night she'd dreamt of another time she'd nearly forgot.
Since foalhood she was always off-kilter, an outlier. She watched the way her siblings skirted away, how strangers kept their distance. Feelings of estrangement and loneliness permeated each waking moment and even her dreams creating a hard, dark place inside of her that she often receded into. That dream the night she'd encountered the obelisk, however, was different. It showed her a time of acceptance. A totoma speaking directly to her, no shying away, no flinching. He made her feel safe, secure in who she was. She forgot to feel strange. She's held onto that dream since. Clutching to the hope of feeling that once more despite the continued onslaught of side glances and wide berths.
She stood with her usual restless shuffling and stared up at the dark, ominous obelisk with a frown. Once a puzzle, now a part of the landscape with the excitement and buzz of other kin now gone. She related, kind of, to the rock. Kin generally stayed away from the area as the did her, disliking the aura of both obelisk and acha alike. She pondered again its purpose, what the lights had been for. Why eleven? What was it signalling? Did it call out for acceptance just like she did internally?
"We are the same, you and I," she whispered to the obelisk, "Though what do you seek? Tell me your secrets."
When the obelisk stayed silent she heaved a heavy sigh and turned to leave. She danced away, looking back once in hope that something, anything would still answer her. Disappointment crept in and settled at the thought that even something like her avoided interaction and refused to speak. If she thought a little harder she would have know that it spoke to no one, that it was a puzzle solved and forgotten, but she didn't. She couldn't see past the deep feelings of rejection she was used to and added another nick to her already abused heart and psyche.
"Alone I came, alone I leave." She sighed and then breathed in a sing-song chant, "Don't get close, stay away, and maybe far away she'll stray." The little song was a memory, one of many, of the cruel treatment of her youth. Her eyes, pale and wild, looked around to any other kin gathered to watch them react to her.