And she never felt loneliness.
She had seen and heard the speech of others of her kind, roaming the frozen Northern lands singularly and in groups. She did occasionally wonder who they were, or what they were like; she was curious about company. Every time her little paws brought her close by to listen in on their speech and gather information, though, she could feel a tingle of cold start in her chest and spread out to her extremeties until even the tips of her ears and the ends of the hairs on her short, fluffy tail felt frozen stiff. She would hear her heart pounding in her ears and her paws would scurry her off in the opposite direction to the beat of the nervous drum.
Aside from these rare glimpses of other Samanayrs, the only other color in the snowscapes were flowers, blooming infrequently and lasting only a few days in the chilled clime. She relished the times she found these frail petal-producers... she sometimes wondered if she would have ever known what joy was, had she never seen them.
Now and then their velveteen petals would get eaten - she was almost always hungry, after all - but the majority she would keep for herself, carefully pulling up their stems and releasing them from the ground, winding them into her fur or behind her ears. Eventually she wove a clumsy basket for herself - her lack of skill apparent in every dead branch's weft or warp - so she could carry the flowers with her wherever she went.
The saddest days, of course, were those when the browned flowers would start losing their petals, until, as the last dropped, the flower became nothing more than a wilted stem. She learned about life most easily in this fashion; everything had a time to go, even the tiniest plants. She held funerals for them, not even knowing what a "funeral" was, simply wanting to thank the ground and sky for producing the bud and the flower itself for accompanying her on her journey. Pangs of loss and regret followed her for days after.
Her days went on like this for some time. Time was fluid, though. She kept no journal or marked stick showing days; the sun set and the moon rose but everything was just life.
And, one day in her life, she came across another Samanayr unexpectedly. It came without warning; she had no chance to run like she usually did.
That day, she had awakened to the sun shining down and warming the ice crystals off her fur. She shook herself free of the cold and bounded in a circle in the snow for a moment, filling herself with energy and welcoming the day-globe above.
Then, she spotted it: A tiny string of blue flowers, dainty and all in a row, hanging from the curled stem of a little plant high on a snow-ridge and at the edge of a small patch of grass.
Excited, she started off toward it, and reached it in mere moments. After a nibble at the green grass shoots, she wandered closer to the flower and sniffed at it; a scent she'd never smelled before wafted out to greet her, a faint perfume of dew and earth.
She ended up touching noses with something.
"My flower," it spoke. She might have frozen, but she felt a mix of offended and downtrodden at the thought that the flower she'd discovered could belong to - and be taken away by - someone else.
"... is it your flower? I'm sorry. It's... pretty," she backed up a bit and brought herself closer to the ground. She felt her face warm up as it flushed red and her giant ears and fluffy tail began to twitch.
"Mine," the youngster replied, and ate it in one bite. It then spread its wings and made to fly off, with only a baleful glance back over its shoulder at the cream-colored Northern foal.
"You.. have nice..." she offered a tentative flapping gesticulation, uncertain both of her terminology and of whether it was normal to compliment them. But she did find them marvelous, feathered in the same hue as the snow.
"Do you fly... like a... tweet tweet?" she mimicked the noise of the birds, unable to recall the term for them.
"I'm not a bird," the foal responded ruefully, "but I can fly, mhm."
It nodded a moment, and then with a mischeivous look, it slithered over to her and wrapped its foretalons and tail around her. Its wings beat once, twice, and it thrust itself up into the air, sailed a few feet, then set her back down - rather unceremoniously, from several inches up - in a snowbank.
All she was able to utter through the ordeal was "EEEEE!" but toward the end it became a little more joyful-sounding than frightened.
When she finally dug herself out of the bank, she found the scaley youngster had landed nearby and was still glaring at her as if examining her.
"Parents?" It finally asked, succinctly.
"What is... parents?" she replied hesitantly.
"Oh" was all the youngster replied, at first... then, "Maybe you'll get wings later."
"Wings?" she made the flapping motion again. The youngster nodded, never taking its calculating gaze off of her.
"Anything that would help me gather flowers..." she trailed off as she remembered the blue one the youngster had eaten. Her ears drooped; she hadn't seen a flower in days, and it would likely be days more before any others appeared.
"Flowers're tasty," the youngster replied, rolling its shoulders in an unconcerned shrug.
"Yes, they're good... to eat..." Suddenly she remembered the basket of flowers she'd left behind when she'd first seen the blue one. A secret, silent war began within her, something new and curious, something she couldn't put a paw-toe on, no matter how hard she tried. Feelings bubbled up that she couldn't remember feeling at all, and she was surprised at the conclusion they led to.
"I'll be back," she hurriedly offered before scampering back to where she'd been laying when she'd awakened. Her badly-woven basket was there, brimming with all of the flowers she'd gathered; she scooped the handle up in her mouth and bounded back to the youngster's side.
"I have more flowers... you... want one?" She plucked out a fresh-looking daffodil and offered it to the youngster, whose eyebrows raised. She wasn't sure what that response entailed, but the longer she waited for a response, the more self-conscious she became of how she'd approached the situation. She started to pull the flower back, to put it back in her basket so she could scamper away as she always did.
"Sure," the youngster replied, snatching the daffodil from her mouth and rolling it up into its own in one quick movement, munching, swallowing, and seeming satisfied.
"Thanks," it finished, giving a smile - one that might have looked menacing thanks to its hooked snout, if she had only had any idea what a menacing look was - and moving closer with a slithering gait to peek into her basket.
"My name's Poison of the Blazing Viper, what's yours?" the youngster then piped up, before digging its snout into her basket and pulling out another fresh flower to munch on. She found it hard to feel upset; instead, she felt happy just to be around this other, young Samanayr, for some reason.
"Name? I guess... I don't have one?"
"Most of us don't 'till we're older; you could probably pick yours, then," the youngster shrugged again, and ate another flower.
"I'll call you Flower," it finally said between bites of a daisy.
"Flower," she beamed approvingly.
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I'm actually still not sure whether Poison is bipedal like her father or has all four legs so I tried to leave it vague. >.> But I did name Poison just as soon as I got her, so that's why she has a name now, rather than when she grows up (which should be in a few days, eee!)
