I am Wren.  Ah’ren, when I am out and about in the worlds of the Equi.  Things were not always as they are now, not as enlightened, not as forward thinking.  And I was not always as I am now.  I was once just another Equi youth, or so I thought, glad to be through Final Form, anxious to be off to Lycee and then into the world to find my place.  But my world, and my place, existed far beyond anything I could have possibly imagined; longer, darker, more dangerous and challenging and sometimes … more wonderful.

I found some of my journals the other day, on a crys-tel I’d apparently dropped in a tack box along with a broken polo mallet, a cracked helmet with a frayed chinstrap, a bridle that needed new reins, and a saddle blanket that needed mending.  I’m wondering now if I had to hide the crys-tel in a hurry.  Or maybe it was the beginning of a collection of things I was planning to get around to when I had a spare moment.  More likely, it dropped off its chain while I was otherwise occupied with the contents of the box.  In any case, there it was, and there they were.  Years and years’ worth of memories, waiting to be revisited.

And there I was, with a spare moment, so I sat down with them.  I began to read, and all those yesterdays came flooding back with images so real I could see the colors and smell the heat, hear the voices of those who spoke to me of my dreams and my fate.  I could feel the shock, the chill, the sense of abandonment.  The awful, debilitating fear … and then … the absolute, blinding outrage.  And yet in those pages there was this growing sense of determination – the need to make my future more than what others had planned for me – to become more than I was meant to be.

My place in the world changed, because I changed it, and in the course of changing myself I changed others, as well.  From what I was to who I am is contained in those pages, and in them I find joy, because I find my own strength.

These are not public, of course, but you may read them here – a bit at a time – if you do not speak of me or my past.  That must remain between us.

Ahimsa, I wish thee peace ~ Ah’ren