The weft and weave
of tunnels unending,
winding
Running to the endings-
winding.

Spoiler

This is a play on the fact that winding and winding are spelled the same- but whine-ding is different than win-ding

Never a threat should pass his lips
Only promises

Filled not with dreams of rolling grass, but roiling waves,
the misshapen kiokote tossed and turned sleeplessly.
His mind was filled with delicate scales, of dark depths, of rock-like tree-beasts.
The shimmering souls, the shoals-

He rose, and dove.

The cold blanket of snow, a long silence. The gentle dreaming,
the soft growth beneath,
the first, tender stems pressing through.
A trail of purple and gold, leading fresh foals into the spring with a gentle Crocus Call.

Beneath, between,
With intent to glean,
Slink through daylight
and well through the night.

In the Dreaming,
Wandering, Wanting, Wondering,
Uncertain of who she was,
the Acha heard the Waking say,
"You are A Little Piece Of Me,"
And she Woke.

Her legs sang with sharp pains with each thunderous hoofbeat, the sharp clack of stone, the squelch of marsh giving way. At her heels howled a pack that would surely consume her to the scale-plate, to the bone, if she stopped.

So she didn't.

She was young, her scales barely hardened and her legs still unsteady from step to step. There were already lines of red on her flanks, and the wounds ached, begged her to stop, to lie down and coat them in mud. The panting grew louder. Another snap, up near her scale-plate. A new blossom of pain, and the nameless lamb turned away, tore herself aside. Threw herself into a river, dark eyes wide as she crossed neck-deep. Deep gulps of air, and the mangrove thickened, closed around her.

Something ahead moved, grunting. Huffing as the mass rose, it fixed the little lamb in its pitch eyes, and stepped from the shade of the roots quietly. An ancient-looking boar of a similar coat color, his nostrils flaring. The wolves circled up, closing the boar and lamb in. He grunted, and then turned his head slowly about until his eyes landed back on the lamb. He stepped up, and dropped his head, flashing wide tusks.

No more running.

All that was left was simply to

Fight.

Delicate work, elegant, slow motions.
Pale colors, marked into flush hide.
Any error in the making would destroy
the Fragile Form.

Deep beneath the surface of the glittering seas,
no light, only sound. A impossible heartbeat,
the rhythm below the blue.

Peering up at the earthen Motherfather
Safety in stone, set-
Until one day, They rumbled, a deep unknowable hunger.
The slate grey split into the most beautiful gold and rose hues
Broken Skies do not always spell doom, but birth.

Nothing to the left
Nothing to the right
Straight Forward,
Straightforward.

No matter how dark the night was, there would always be a dawn.
The Acha's mother had told him that as a foal.
She'd told him that the first time when his father had been taken by drought.
He hadn't been the only one- a half a dozen does, three bucks, and twelve foals were a lot of lives to hold in one's mouth, especially with the sun starving the oases.
The foals drank first, any time the herd found even so much as dew drops, safe cacti were kicked in to let the hardiest drink. Still, more fell as the young buck watched his mother lead them tirelessly. She was the oldest, and chewed the husks of cacti for every bit that they had to offer. When more of the herd had withered than remained, she gave to them whatever she could of herself, uttering, each time, that dawn would come.

When she fell, he wanted to cry and bawl, but there were no tears to shed. Nothing to spare. He put his horned head down, and put his herdmates on his back, and continued onward.

Onward, as the sky began to fill with clouds in the night that he bitterly expected to dry up in the sun's cruel gaze.

Onward, until he could see green on the horizon, and, half-expected it to be a hallucination. When, weakly, the doe on his back picked up her head and whispered a hoarse hope, he picked up his pace.

As the clouds opened up, trailing after him, day broke. The Drought broke behind them, before them.

Undaunted, Daybreak.

Naming RP go brr