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Marnie's paws hurt from all the walking she had done that day. Her head hung slightly from exhaustion as she leaned against a tree. She felt comfort from it's sturdiness, knowing that through all it had been through it still clung to the soil beneath it and pulled life into it. A small smile crept onto her weary face as she thought how she could relate. Clinging to life through all its hardships. It was enough to give a pony nightmares, surely. And it often did. Lately her dreams had been calm, she had been able to move past many of the horrific things she had seen and been made a part of. Still, she felt weary as she let herself collapse to the ground for the nights rest.
The grass here was fresh and green. It seemed to thrive with the other living things around it. She joyed in the simple fresh smell of clipped grass from what she assumed had been a stranger grazing earlier. In the past, such a sign would have sent chills of horror down her spine. Her wild frenzied mind bursting with images of the nightmare strangers that would grasp and cling to her. Harm and pierce her very flesh. But now, now she had met enough kind soquilli to be able to enjoy the smell of freshly clipped grass.
It wasn't long that her muscles relaxed and her mind finally drifted into dreamland. Her eyes blinking at the same moonlit patch of grass her travel weary body had laid down upon to rest. She gave a breathy sigh of relief when she could feel none of her muscles aching. She blinked a few times again to clear away the blurriness. It was pure pleasure to give herself time to wake up, and not have to instantly make her mind at full power the second she awoke. Gaining her wits about her, she calmly remained laying down, her legs tucked beneath her as she let the tree support some of her weight. Odd, she thought. With how relaxed she had felt, her fur now started to stand on end a little, further and further as each second passed. Marnie was now just noticing how deathly quiet it was.
Sure, it was night, it was bound to be a time when many others were asleep and quiet. But not like this. This quiet sent a chill down her spine. As if nothing else was in the world to make a sound. Not even the wind greeted her as she had blinked her eyes open. Marnie looked around, slowly getting to her paws first, then setting her hooves firmly on the ground beneath her. What was this feeling? Her head now whipped from one direction to another, and another, as she tried to keep an eye on all angles. Then she felt it.
It was a feeling before it was a sound. A steady reverberating in her chest, which she knew could not be her heart, for by now it had started to race quicker with each turn of her head. Then the sound came. It roared in her ears as the quietness around her was shattered. 'What could it possibly be?' her mind now asked it's self, screaming the words in her brain as it threw out images from her past. The Blood Moon Circus. The ever lasting abusive Kelpy that would cause her no end of sorrows till finally she was able to escape. Even the skinwalker who had stolen her from her mother while she still laid in her basket and tortured her before leaving her moments away from death on the Blood Moons doorstep had not caused such panic in her as this.
Finally, her limbs burst into motion as her mind finally broke through the terror. Through all her racing memories, only one seemed to fall into place. She had heard the stories while at her time as a captive for The Circus. A hunt that's only goal and purpose in this world was to kill and end everything it came into contact with. And she was next. She screamed at her legs to move faster and faster. If she could not out run them, it was death for her. By now she could almost feel their razor hot breath breathing on her neck. Their rallying screams of war sounded like they took pure joy in causing her heart to beat almost at bursting pace. Her lungs aching with the icy night air that ripped into her lungs as she pounded the earth faster and faster beneath her.
Suddenly, a front paw was snagged by a root and she fell, tumbling to what she thought could only be her death. She jerked awake, every muscle in her body screaming as her mind instantly snapped out of the dream. She had not enjoyed a peaceful slow awakening this time. She tried to get her breathing back in control as she realized her dream of The Wild Hunt had been just that, only a dream. She focused on her paws, slowly unfurling her grip on the soil as she noticed the deep claw marks she had made in her frantic nightmare.
Well, maybe tomorrow could be her day for peaceful awakenings.
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