Elle Ponygirl Outfitting
Everything is so quiet, but it’s a heavy quiet. Like the air is made of velvet. I remember being on a set in Savannah once, wearing these huge, beautiful gowns and feeling like a princess. I used to love the feeling of being dressed—the way a costume can make you feel like someone completely new. But this isn't a costume. A costume comes off when the director yells "cut." Here, there is no "cut." There’s only the sound of leather rubbing against leather. I’m standing here, and I feel so... tall. The hoof boots make me feel like I’m walking on stilts made of bone. My heels are so high up that my legs look like they belong to a deer. I look down—or I try to, before they tighten the throat latch—and I don't see a girl. I see this long, pale neck and shoulders that are pulled back so far it hurts to breathe. "Hold still, Elle," the woman says. She’s being so gentle, which is almost worse. She’s brushing my hair, but she’s braiding it into the synthetic mane of the tail. "You’re going to be the most beautiful thing in the stable." I want to say thank you. I want to tell her that the lace on the harness is scratchy. But I can't. The metal bit is already there, resting on my tongue like a cold, heavy secret. It feels so huge in my mouth. It makes me feel like an object. A precious, delicate object that someone bought and decided to break. The blinders go on, and the world just... blinks out. It’s like the sun went behind a cloud and never came back. I can’t see my hands. I can’t see the floor. I’m just floating in this dark, warm space, and the only thing I can feel is the weight of the tail hanging behind me and the bit tasting like coins in my mouth. I keep thinking that if I just close my eyes and wish hard enough, I’ll wake up in my own bed with the sun coming through the window. But then I feel the leather reins snap onto the rings of my bit. Tug. The metal pulls at the corners of my mouth, and my head follows it. I don’t even think about it. I just step forward. Clop. Clop. The sound of the hooves on the stone is so loud in the silence. It’s the only sound left in the world. I’m not a girl in a story anymore. I’m the story itself. And the ending is already written