Riding Bareback
By GeoGirl
Disclaimer: I do not own anything of Alias or its characters. I'm borrowing them temporarily and will return them as soon as I fix the tire on my bike.
Distribution: SD-1, Cover Me and Fanfiction.net and any one who asks first.
Rated G to R depending on the chapter. Each will be marked appropriately.
A/N: I'm such a feedback junkie, so help support my habit. Thanks.
Sunshine (Rated G)
A slow steady rhythm, up down up down. A cadence similar to a metronome, tick tock tick tock. In out, tick tock, up down. Rhythm. It has its place in life; it permeates through everything and defines time.
She is riding in a borrowed car with her father to the farm in the country. Her mother and Serge remained in Stalingrad, for this was her birthday present. The drive is long and treacherous, her father urging the car faster over the half paved roads; her teeth jarring with every bump and pothole. She looks over to her father; eyes forward on the road and half smoked, brown wrapped cigarette hanging out of his mouth. She wants to talk with him, ask him all sorts of questions, but her father has never been one to really hold onto a conversation. She wonders how he ever won her mother's heart, being so silent.
There waiting at the gate is an acquaintance of her father. He is old and weather beaten, dressed in what appear to be slightly better than rags. She looks down at her new dress; though second hand, it is better than anything this man has probably ever owned. Wrinkles mar his skin, etched deep by years of hard work, sorrow and unyielding weather. His wave and smile are halfhearted and even less sincere. She could see his family huddled in the doorway of their rough two-room house. Big eyes and prominent knees and elbows hinted at the lack of enough food to go around. This is how it is everywhere. She did not look much better; life was hard, even for those in the government and especially those not quite in favor of the government.
Today is her twelfth birthday, and her father arranged this present for her, for there was nothing he could afford to buy for her. A secret between father and daughter.
The two men share a few words and a few nods of the head as she looks around. There is a small garden to the side of the house, plants barely breaking through the rich black soil. She spies bits of machinery rusting throughout the waist-high weeds surrounding the remainder of the house. A rooster and some chickens scuttle around the yard, looking as though they are getting better food than the children.
She glances toward the barn and sees why they came all this way; a horse leaning through the rails of the rough pasture, straining to reach the tender shoots of grass on the other side of the fence. She knows immediately what the animal is feeling; she often reaches for things just out of her grasp, so her mother scolds her. It is not a beautiful animal, but a large workhorse. Dull brown and just past his prime, scarred from years of service to his master. Weren't they all? His coat isn't shiny and she sees small scars marking his rump. But for a few short hours, he is to be her winged Pegasus, come from the heavens just for her.
"What is his name?" she asks.
"He has none. He's just a plow horse," the man answered with a shake of his head, disbelief showing on his face.
"His name is Sunshine," a small voice answers. His daughter; she sounds both younger and older than her appearance. Her threadbare dress filters the sunlight around her, giving shape to the hard conditions in which they all live. Just this side of starvation; it is the way of the small farmers that hadn't joined the collectives.
"Pappa, help me up," the older girl demands. She will take her prize, as it may be her only chance. She knows enough not to question and therefore chooses to ignore.
She sits there as regally as she could on top of the large horse for a few moments, getting her bearings. She's never been on a horse before but instinctively it feels right. The horse is so large that her feet stick out straight to the sides like a doll; she is unable to bend her knees around its stomach. She grips on tight to the coarse strands of it's mane and turns the horse around to the face the far side of the pasture and gives the horse a nudge. Sunshine begins to move slowly as the sun reaches its zenith in the sky.
The two head across to the far side of the pasture at a fair trot. Up down, in motion with the rhythm. And the speed begins to increase and she feels as if she is flying. Riding bareback. Her hair whipping behind her as she raises her face to the sunshine. She, the wind, and Sunshine become one and she anticipates the moment when they will break earthly bonds, deceive gravity and fly. Forgotten are the breadlines, the lack of heat in the cold, harsh winters, and her parents fighting over the lack of money. Gone are the second hand clothes, too often patched boots, and gasoline rationing. She is free, alive, warm, and a fairy princess. Flying free, all outside of time and all without constraint. She feels weightless, unlike anything she could ever imagine.
"So this is what freedom feels like," she thinks. And she knows she will never forget.
Sunshine instinctively begins to slow and she then notices the fence looming large and impregnable in front of them. She wills the horse to speed up and jump the fence, setting them both free.
"Go, go, go!" She leans and whispers in his ear, trying to make him understand that is so much better on the other side. Freedom is just a fence away; she can taste it, sweet like the clover honey at her babushka's. Her heels dig into the horseflesh as she tries again to make the animal listen. But it won't listen to her pleas and stops at the fence line.
She gives a small scream of frustration and loss; her dream is shattered. With tears glistening in her eyes, she turns the animal around and the animal slowly walks back to the barn. Her hand reaches into her pocket and feels the carrot there. It was going to be a treat for the horse for a dream he gave her, but now, she decides that the animal beneath her is undeserving. She pulls out her hand and doesn't even look as the carrot drops to the ground.
That fence is now more real to her than anything else she knows. She turns and looks back at it one last time. She faces forward again and looks toward her father, straightens tall and brushes the tears from her eyes. He will never know what she just lost.
She pulls the horse around to the fence and slides down without ceremony. She gives her father a halfhearted smile.
"Irina, you may ride for a bit longer; I have made all the arrangements."
"No Pappa, I'm done. Thank you for the wonderful gift." And she places a kiss on his cheek. She turns once more to the far fence and sighs. She solemnly walks to the car and sits in the passenger seat, looking straight ahead. Her dream is over and so is her childhood.
She sighs again.