SA | CP 2.1 | To make a point

+6 AP and +4 CS (996 words and Lv.2 Checkpoint) | For Amber

"You accidentally got your hooves on and drank a bad potion, how do you feel?"

She twirled the bottle in front of her, the magical content swishing around as she did so. She watched it quietly. Was this what she wanted? Her thoughts felt muddled and her heart torn. Something about it felt incredibly wrong. While it was common practise around the world, to her family it was sacrilegious to even consider such a thing and only ever used in the most dire of circumstances. The earth was slow, vast. It had patience and it was a virtue that should be followed, pursued in life. There were so many who tried to get away from death, to live a little longer, to see another day. And yet here she was considering to take from it. Yet all those things that made it feel so wrong, at the same time made it feel so right. She felt an anxious sort of excitement course through her at the thought of doing this. An act of rebelly, of support. Something small but with so much meaning. Let them feel how she looked down upon their views and backed up her brother in the process. She revelled at the thought of angering her uncle. She wanted that, see the look on his face. It was almost like revenge. For yelling at Nathaniel, for thinking he could control them, control her. Only they could take command over their own lives. She would show them that. She slowly removed the cork from the bottle, holding her breath as she did so. She tried to gather courage. To push through with it. The bottle trembled in her grip, her teke unsteady from the nerves. Do it quick. There was no time for dwelling here. She closed her eyes and with all the courage she had mustered she took a gulp.

For a moment nothing happened and she blinked, wondering if perhaps she had had too little, but then her world tilted, making her loose her grip on the bottle. It fell to the ground and shattered into little pieces, the remainder of the liquid spilled over the earth, making  small plants sprout from the surface, flower and then wither. Dizzy, she fell to her knees, then on her side. Screaming as she felt her muscles pull and her skin ripple as it changed in rapid succession. It hurt, but as hurtful as her body changing was, the changing of her mind, unseen but well felt, was even more so. She couldn't grasp how, but somewhere in her confused state she understood that it was and for a moment it scared her, knowing that there was no turning back. The magic would finish whatever she had started.

She didn't know how much time passed, time itself somehow deluding her, whether it was the magic's fault or the state of her befuddled mind she would not be able to tell, though she would later guess it was a mixture of both. Eventually though, an amount of time having passed that felt like ages to Amber, it all stopped and she lay on the ground exhausted. She somewhere in the back of her mind registered that her Uncle stood in the room, having entered at some point and now was yelling at her. She could barely hear the words, everything sounding very far away, but still she smiled. Take that, Uncle. And then she blacked out completely.

---

"You stupid, girl, you could have been killed." Amber kept her eyes closed as she heard her Uncle's voice mutter, apparently more so to himself than her as he moved around the room. Somewhere her mother was talking and she felt something cold placed on her head. That head ached and she kept still, not wanting the headache to increase with her Uncle's whining. "How much?" She heard her mother asked. She didn't sound angry, worried, but not angry. "It's hard to tell," that annoying voice answered, a deep sigh being heard. "She was always a slow grower and the potion might have gotten her on track." There was a pause in which they were probably regarding her. Amber held her breath, wanting to know the answer herself. She hadn't properly researched the potions' qualities. It hadn't seemed important at the time, but now it seemed inherently stupid. What had she been thinking? Oh, right, revenge. It could have killed her probably. Or at least turned her into a shrivelled old mare incapable of realizing any of her current goals. How foolish. She mentally scoffed at herself, the headache making her head throb. She concentrated on her uncle as he spoke again. "I can't tell for sure, but I don't think it would be much more than a year or two. I don't think she drank much considering the spilled bottle... Where did she even get it? That dumb girl, so reckless." If Amber didn't know any better she would have thought he actually sounded... like he cared. That stallion was beyond such sentiments though.

She continued her feigned sleep, unwilling to face the world quite yet, her actions weighing down on herself like none before. The whole ordeal just left her both psychically and mentally exhausted. She wondered if she had muscle, if it would affect her training. It were all things she had not thought of at the time. And she dared say she studied tactics. Clearly she needed work on that. Her body felt definitely sore and her mind was abuzz despite the pain thinking induced. Blasted magic. How was this daily practise? To put young horses through this? She could see why her family was against it. She felt herself willing sleep to claim her. She would never have it said she was a coward, but in the moment she knew her limitations and wanted a short retreat from the world. It seemed sleep agreed she needed her rest as it claimed her rather fast. About two years, huh? She just hoped she had driven her point home with that.