The sun was already dipping low by the time Day Dream returned from tending the fields. A soft glow lined the horizon, painting the sky with fading gold. The wooden door creaked open, and the filly stirred on the small bed, her ears twitching at the sound.
"You're awake," Day Dream said with a gentle smile, easing the door shut behind her. She carried a folded blanket over one arm and a bowl of warm soup in the other. "That's good. I was worried you pushed yourself too far earlier, you were fast asleep when I got back to hand you a glass of water."
The filly tried to sit upright—slowly this time. Her muscles protested, trembling like taut wires ready to snap. Still, she managed it.
"I… I'm sorry," she murmured. Her voice was thin, barely more than a breath. "I just didn't want to cause trouble."
Day Dream placed the bowl on a small table and crouched a bit to meet her eyes. "You're not trouble. You're recovering. That takes time."
The statement was simple, yet the filly's chest tightened. Time… She had run out of that once before. Did she deserve more of it now?
Day Dream stood and offered her hand. "Come. There's something you should see."
The filly hesitated. "Outside… again?"
"Just a few steps. And I'll be right here."
Her tail flicked nervously, but she nodded. With Day Dream's support, she slid off the bed and found her hooves on the floor. They wobbled beneath her like newborn foals learning balance. Day Dream didn't rush her. She waited for each breath, each shift of weight, as though the journey of five steps was as important as any race.
The door opened, and cool air kissed the filly's face. She blinked at the sight before her—vast fields now washed in violet dusk, fireflies beginning to glow like tiny stars scattered across the grass.
"It's beautiful…" she whispered, breath catching.
Day Dream leaned on the fence beside her. "It always is. But you should look up."
Slowly, the filly lifted her gaze. The sky above stretched endlessly—deep, wide, and breathtaking. First one star, then another appeared, until countless lights shimmered overhead. The moon peeked above the hills, forming a silver ribbon along the filly's hair.
Her heart pounded—not from exertion, but awe. All her life, the ceiling of a hospital room had been her sky. White panels. Fluorescent lights. Machines and alarms. Even when she'd looked through the window, the world had felt far away.
But this—this felt like the universe itself was finally within reach.
She reached her hand out, fingers trembling as if she could pluck a star from the velvet dark. "I always wondered… if the night really looked like this," she said quietly. "I thought seeing it would hurt. That I'd feel left behind again."
Day Dream's voice softened. "Do you still feel that way?"
The filly lowered her hand. "No… For the first time… I feel like I'm part of it."
A breeze swept through the farm, lifting strands of her hair and brushing against her ears. The wind didn't push her away. It invited her forward.
Her legs, though fragile, tingled with a strange craving—movement. Freedom. Run, something whispered inside her. Not yet, but someday.
Day Dream noticed how her eyes kept drifting to the open fields. "You want to try walking more tomorrow?" she asked with a playful tilt of her head.
The filly inhaled deeply, gathering a sliver of courage. "Not just walk," she said. "One day… I want to run. Faster than anything."
Day Dream's expression shifted—surprise, then admiration. Her smile returned, brighter than the rising moon." That's a wonderful dream," she said. "And I'll help you chase it."
The filly's heartbeat fluttered. Support. Belief. Two things she'd never thought were meant for her.
She leaned lightly against the fence, not from weakness, but to steady the excitement blooming inside.
"Tomorrow," she whispered, eyes shining with reflected starlight. "Just one more step farther than today."
Day Dream's ears perked at the determination lacing the filly's voice. Not the shaky kind she heard earlier — but the kind rooted in something deeper. Hope. Desire. A tiny spark glowing against a long night.
She placed a steadying hand against the filly's back as they turned toward the door.
"That's all progress is," Day Dream said softly. "One more step."
The filly kept her eyes on the stars a second longer before finally letting the night settle behind her. Each movement back into the house felt different now — less like retreating and more like preparing. Rest wasn't the enemy. It was part of the race.
Inside, the warm smell of soup greeted her, comforting and familiar. She hadn't realized how hungry she was until the first sip warmed her throat. Day Dream watched her, not hovering, but always close enough to catch her if she faltered.
"You know," Day Dream said while leaning against the table, "when I first started running… I couldn't make it past the chicken coop without tripping over my own hooves."
The filly blinked in surprise. "Really? But you're… well, you're you."
Day Dream laughed — not a quiet, polite kind, but the type that lit up her entire expression.
"Yes, and I was a disaster when I began. Everyone starts somewhere. Even champions."
The filly lowered her gaze to the bowl. "Even… me?"
"Especially you," Day Dream said.
Warmth rushed through the filly's chest faster than the soup could spread. She quickly busied herself with eating, unsure how to face such genuine kindness without melting into a puddle on the floor.
Once the bowl was empty, Day Dream took it and set it aside. She returned to the bed, tucking the blanket around the filly like it was a treasured keepsake.
"Tomorrow," the filly whispered again, letting her eyes grow heavy.
"Tomorrow," Day Dream echoed.
The candlelight dimmed, shadows stretching across the room as the night deepened. The filly listened to the distant rustle of leaves, the chirping of crickets, the heartbeat of a world she wanted so desperately to run through.
Sleep took her gently — not forced by exhaustion this time, but welcomed by dreams of racing beneath starlit skies, hooves pounding against soft earth, wind roaring in her ears…
The kind of dreams she never allowed herself before.
Morning arrived without alarms, only the steady conversation of birds and the soft creak of the farmhouse settling in the cold. The filly opened her eyes to the kind of quiet that let her breathe without measuring each intake; the ache in her legs was present, but reduced to a manageable background thrum.
Day Dream was already up. She moved through the room with easy, practiced motions — brewing water, wiping a counter, folding a cloth with the kind of economy that comes from years of routine. When she glanced across at the filly, her smile was small and real.
"How did you sleep?" she asked.
"Enough," the filly answered, pushing her hair back with one hand. The movement wrenched a small pain through her ribs, and she hissed once; it was an honest sound, not a complaint. Day Dream paused, then reached out to steady her shoulder as if they were balancing a shared weight.
"You did well yesterday," Day Dream said. "Today, we try a little farther. No leaps. Just more of what you did."
The filly looked at the window, where the first light of day was running along the fenceposts. The plan felt reasonable. The word "training" no longer sounded like a threat; it sounded like something to schedule, like an appointment she could keep. She nodded.
Outside, the air held frost and the scent of wet earth. They walked slowly along the farm path, the filly's steps careful and deliberate. Day Dream stayed within reach but did not guide her; she offered space for the filly to find balance on her own. That particular kind of confidence — the one that trusts another to learn — steadied the filly more than any hand could.
"Find the rhythm," Day Dream advised. "Not with your head. Let your body answer."
Rhythm was easier to imagine than to execute. The filly focused on the tactile: the way the toe met the ground, the roll of the foot, the subtle shift of weight through the hips. Each tiny correction felt like a conversation between joint and mind. When she stumbled, she slowed her breath and adjusted; when her balance held, even for half a step, appreciation rose quietly inside her.
They reached a marker post by the training strip, a paint-faded stake driven into the dirt. Yesterday it had been a distant shape; today it was simply a place to aim for.
"Ten more steps," Day Dream said without ceremony.
The filly's mouth went dry, but she accepted the target nonetheless. Ten steps was not heroic; it was ordinary, ordinary enough to be plausible and precise.
She set her feet and began. The first three were measured, careful. The fourth felt easier. On the sixth her knee trembled, and she nearly corrected with her hands before remembering Day Dream's advice. Instead she adjusted the roll of her foot and kept going. The dirt held her weight. The wind bit at her cheeks and nothing catastrophic happened. On the tenth step she stopped and folded forward for a brief breath, palms on her thighs.
Day Dream watched her with steady eyes. "You managed them," she said simply. No grand language. No medals. Just the fact.
The filly laughed then, low and surprised, because the accomplishment was so small and so desperately needed. The laugh loosened something — a muscle, a fear — enough that she straightened and felt something like pride, warm and embarrassing in her chest.
When they walked back toward the house, the filly glanced at the yard as if seeing it newly. Where the field had once been a boundary she could not cross, it had become evidence: a place whose edge she had reached. She did not cross it yet, but the line between here and out there felt thinner.
Breakfast was practical — steamed rice, miso, a soft omelet. They ate together without hurry.
Conversation drifted into easy spaces: a joke about Day Dream's earliest mistakes, a short story about a stubborn mare who refused to train unless bribed with carrots. The filly listened and answered when she could; she did not try to impress, only to be part of the exchange.
After the meal Day Dream pulled a small cloth from a drawer and repaired the frayed bandage at the filly's ribs. Her hands were methodical, moving with the kind of practiced gentleness that shows care more than words can. The filly let her touch be the proof that someone else would help hold the pieces together when she could not.
"You're worrying too much about tomorrow," Day Dream said as she tucked the cloth away. "Focus on what's in front of you. Curves will come later."
The filly considered the words and found them useful. Saying them aloud, Day Dream made tomorrow less like a fog and more like a sequence of possible actions. She found it easier to breathe.
Later, while the sun climbed, Day Dream brought out a short strip of turf — a softer surface that gave slightly beneath each step. It was a concession to comfort and to the mechanics of learning. The filly stood at its edge and tested the feel with a single toe, then another. The surface swallowed a fraction of the impact and the motion asked different muscles to participate.
"Try to flow," Day Dream said. "Not fast. Smooth."
They moved. When the filly extended her stride just a little and let the momentum carry the weight of intention, the motion felt cleaner than the raw panic of earlier attempts. She did not sprint; she found a stretch in her step where the foot met turf and pushed off with purpose. Three strides that felt like beginning points. She reduced the urge to wrench control and trusted the mechanics she had been practicing.
Afterward, she sat on the fence with her hands folded in her lap, cheeks warming under the sun. Day Dream joined her and, for a while, they watched a distant pair of swallows wheel and disappear into the blue. No one spoke. Silence did the work neither had words for: it stitched the day into a whole.
When the filly finally spoke, it was small and precise. "I thought I'd be ashamed," she said. "If I couldn't run today, I thought I'd be shameful."
"You won't be," Day Dream answered. "You'll be learning. You'll be doing it."
Those were not the same thing, exactly. Learning assumed boards, mistakes, restarts. Doing had a forward motion. Between them, the filly could sense a path: messy, honest, hers.
The afternoon folded into evening with the easy slowness of practiced days. Night came later with a sky full of stars and a steady wind that reminded her of the day she had first woken. She crawled into bed with less tremor than nights before; the ache was there, but it felt earned now, part of a process rather than a sentence.
Before sleep took her, Day Dream sat on the small stool beside the bed. Her presence was quiet, like a hand on the back of a chair: obvious, supportive, not interfering.
"Tomorrow," Day Dream said, "we add a little more." She smiled without theatricality. "Same shape. Slightly further."
The filly let the sentence land. It fit into her like a glove. She closed her eyes, and for the first time in a long time, the thing she wanted most — movement, rhythm, the simple economy of running — felt reachable. It didn't have to be immediate. It only had to be deliberate.
Outside, crickets kept time, and the farmhouse exhaled. The filly's last thought before sleep was neither a demand nor a promise; it was the simple business of putting one foot in front of the other tomorrow, and the knowledge that someone would be there to count the steps with her.
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Why is Day Dream helping our young Filly so much? Does she have a motive or she's just simply that kind? mHmmm.. Okay it's nothing serious, maybe I'll reveal it in a few chapters or so.