~ Ilya and The Great Dance ~
And so it was that the day of The Great Dance had arrived with far more fanfare than had been seen before, or had been expected. "Never in my few months here in The New Territories have I seen an event similar to this one, of such a scale," opined a young buck, "and it does make you wonder what merits such a large showing."
And he was right, for the residents of the New Territories had come out in nigh on full force. It was clear that they had come for the newest among them all, and her crowning as the Belle of the Ball. It was also clear that almost all who had come were of the same gender.
Exactly on the stroke of midnight, the doors opened and a gasp went up among the more bewildered present. It had all built up to this moment. Ilya the Innocent stepped into the room, hardly able to believe the masses that had gathered in honour of her. Momentarily stunned, she regained her composure, gathered her wool and meekly stepped forth to assume her mantle; and thus the dances began.
Her four companion horses watched on as the sheep went about her customary dances. They stood in a corner, minding their own businesses as they watched the night's proceedings unfold. They stared on as Ilya politely manouevred herself out of uncomfortable dances she had no wish to participate in, yet felt obliged to. And they commented as they watched the hungry animals refuse to relent.
Yet as the night passed, the animals retired one by one until there were but 3 left, and the music changed as the ever-popular Dance of Attrition began. Most persistent by far was Fenrir the prowling wolf, dying for a chance to sink his venomous fangs into her soft flesh. His approach was the most brazen and by far the clumsiest, the two surest signs of a rank newcomer having paid too little attention to his dance steps. There was the Seagull who circled overhead once, twice, then bid a hasty retreat, silently slinking into the twilight. But most sinister of them was The Old Vulture, that most silent resident who went about his operations in the nondescript fashion he had honed to perfection. His approach was simply to stay out of the way and do absolutely nothing until his prey had danced itself out of breath, even if it meant him being out of place most of the time. He would stop at nothing.
And through it all, the four horses stood resilient, watching in vague amusement as the hungry predators performed their rituals. One among them had been deep in thought, and had refused to dance. He was tired of dancing, and if his years of attempting to had taught him anything, it was that his 4 hooves rendered him useless in the ballroom. Besides, he had had enough of this nonsense. He would not partake of such folly anymore.
He thought about how this little game he found himself embroiled in had all begun. He thought about that time when Ilya had been abandoned by her clan and forced to survive on her own, when she had had no friends and no one to look to. He thought about how he decided to help her out, to take it upon himself to bring her to the New Territories and introduce her to its residents. He thought about how he had introduced her to Fenrir, the Vulture and the Seagull.
He thought about that night before The Final Reckoning, her lowest point, and who she had decided to turn to in her greatest hour of need.
And he thought about all the times they had spent together, grazing in his fields and hers, and about how she professed to having never grazed outside her own fields. He thought about that one olive branch she had stuck out to him. He thought about the way she kept asking him about his impending departure to Milrath, and her assertions that she would visit him. He thought about how he had brought her earlier that day to the Pool of Reminiscence, where she had looked back on images of her past and told him it was the best gift she had ever been given. And he had dounts about the veracity of that statement, yet he could not help but feel pleased about it. He wondered about the way she looked at him and wondered if she was just trying to actively deny herself of happiness. He wondered about how far she had come from the first time he had come to her side, and how much she had come out of her shell. He wondered whether Ilya ever thought about these things.
And he thought about how much she seemed to be enjoying basking in the attention of many a beast, how much she delighted in all the other animals fawning over her, perhaps because of her unceremonious banishment by her own clan. He wondered how much she knew about the game she was now in full control of and how much she enjoyed playing it.
And most of all, he wondered whether she was really a sheep at all or not.
