Water. It was ice cold, rushing through, over, and around. Undulating silk, liquid ice, clearer than vision, it rolled over and around the stones without even touching them. It floated, as things do inside of it. The liquid was suspended.


He just had to touch it to see if it was really there, if it was real.

A coal hoof dipped in, the nerves hidden deep in the bone began to tingle, then to throb. The further he moved into the water, the more pull he felt. The immediacy of the numbness made it all so surreal. The pressure of each rivulet slamming against long guardhairs and keratin should have been there, and he felt it pulling higher up on his leg, but couldn't feel anything below. The numb hoof and ankle felt suspended in the unreal water, like moving gel.

What a feeling.


He withdrew the hoof from the water slowly, savoring the crazy feeling that made his bone throb in ice induced pain and his skin feel like it had disappeared. Each drip that rolled off of the black surface, off of the white hair, refused to make a noise greater than that of the trickling, singing stream. Each was lost in the rolling water. Moss tucked his ice cold forehoof beneath him, wincing when the nerves started awakening and stinging him like bees. The stream was still too chilled for a bath.

Moos turned his ears back, then let them droop. He felt so dusty, and his tongue was dry from attempting to clean it off of his fur. The stag lowered his head to the earth in defeat, and was quiet, patient.