Gender: Mare
Owner: LostGosling
Name: Hypothermia
Age: 4
What does her coloring remind you of?: Cold water. Very cold. But as you know, I'm not going to stop describing her there. Let me start with the month of January. It's been below freezing for a while now, far to long for any sane person's liking, and the only thing that keeps the ice from taking over your small pond is the constant attendance of you and your trusty sledge hammer. You trudge out through the snow everyday, and beat a new hole in the surface for your waterfowl to make use of. But alas, by night, a new layer of ice has formed. It's still thin, yes, but it won't be by dawn. It will creep its way further and further into your masterpiece, despite your best efforts, and you'll have to force it back yet again. Maybe, even, you will have to drag the shovel along too, and lift the monstrous chunks away before they freeze in with the new layer. On a particularly grueling day, you might even find yourself just staring at it, vengeful as well as contemplative as you wage war against the impossible. No compromises here, just an endless vendetta that will only halt with the changing seasons. But, at this point of it's stubborn plight, just as night is about to fall on the 30th day in a row, is when a flurry kicks up. The last duck went running for the barn a few hours ago, unable to take the harsh extremes, and the ice has already grown about a half an inch thick. It's perfectly smooth, pristine, like a pane of glass, and tiny white bubbles remain trapped in it's midst as the black water sluggishly swirls beneath. Cold enough at this point, to any human unlucky enough to fall in, that Hypothermia could take hold in less than a minute. As the snow flakes gently fall from the hushed world of twilight, they begin to collect on a single, larger piece of ice. You became sloppy in your rush to get it over with, missing this one piece, and you'll probably hate yourself for it in the morning. Though in reality, when there's not a battle of wills and necessity raging on, it's quite beautiful. Elegant, this thicker piece of ice, a lighter grey toward it's center, and then fading off with the smaller chips into a black abyss. And as the flurry comes to a halt, and dusk slips into night, this is what I find myself seeing in this Boreal Mare. A collection of ice thicknesses, blended into the darkness below by a burst of fresh snow.




















