Where did it begin?

These words continue to echo inside me, and I continue to fail at finding a true answer. But, so too echo the words first spoken to me by her. I have never seen a creature more beautiful than she. I am humbled, cowed, thrilled, all at the same time. She is as small as me, not at all like the two that hit me and spat at me.

"You might as well just curl up and die right now." She said this to me with a snort of such utter frustration, and knocked one small hoof against my shinbone. "Or, if not, then get up and get dressed. I don't need the headache of everyone staring at you..."

She never held out her hand to me to help me up, only tossed my rescued clothes at my face, but the gesture of help was there, implied with her too-caustic tones and those small hands fisted on those gently curved hips.

"Hey, runt, get dressed already! You're gonna help me whether you like it or not!" She pauses and her tail curls slightly, then uncurls with obvious annoyance directed my way. I am lost for a minute, watching the minute shift of her body's language toward me, the scents she gives on the stiff breeze, and the boiling rage that teems under the surface of her voice. It blisters the insides of my mind, and I stare vacantly.

"Ach, and don't go getting a swelled head, neither. I've seen better." I do not understand this phrase. Perhaps she will explain it to me some day.

I need her: her fire, her will, her beauty. She makes my body feel lightheaded, strange, even as her emotions scour my insides and fill me with with-held whimpers for the pain it causes.

Purpose. Resolve. Hope.

It all lurks under the guise of this female, under the pain being near her causes, under the confusion she elicits from me.

Perhaps this is where it begins.