THAT DAY

I read A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske: a queer fantasy of a Muggle dropped into an extended family of Edwardian-era, upper-class magicians gone nasty, like the movie Knives Out plus magic, or a Brit version of Nina Kiriki Hoffman's book The Thread that Binds the Bones. Sexy in places, but dark.

Then, Little Things in a Big Country by Hannah Hinchman, an artist living at the foot of the Front Range in central Montana. For a year, she walks around with her dog, watercoloring the local scene. I'm envious of her skill--such elegant, spacious compositions, where I just plop things on the page, sigh! After seeing a real artist-journal, my dream journals look dumpy.

THAT EVENING

On the web gallery Deviantart, I find a lot of My Little Pony fanart of Princess Celestia--an elegant gorgeous immortal winged unicorn ruling the benevolent matriarchy of Equestria (essentially, she's an equine Galadriel). Of course most of it's pony porn, clunky to downright ugly, but now and then there's one like Vad Yakovlev's "Shall we Swim?" Utterly unlike Hinchman, but I like both.

Untitled [Pronghorns], Hannah Hinchman

Shall We Swim?, Vad Yakovlev

A coyote girl joins a circus or medicine show, and drives a wagon. She has two forms--pure coyote, and about midway--biped with opposable thumbs, but still small, furry, pointed ears, brushy tail. I think she's hot in both forms.

She takes a vacation... with the local wolf pack! But she's a coyote. How can she possibly fit in?

Sex! She mates with at least one wolf, and maybe... all.

I leave the brushy creek where I found Coyote Girl and her wolf friends, and cross a huge meadow dotted with sagebrush. Behind one tall sage thicket, I hear an odd grinding noise. Oh! It's a big glossy showhorse, digging with her forehooves like an excited dog, at the mouth of a prairiedog burrow.

No idea why a horse is playing whack-a-mole. Or why a grazing mare would have a fancy saddle on, or have a combed, glossy mane and tail. Raised and wagging in excitement. Baring a quite human-looking cunt. Another sexy creature out here...

Aaaaand there's her rider! A woman in an English foxhunting outfit--red tights, silly hat and all. A third sexy creature? But her smirk makes me wary. I'd rather mate with a coyote or mare than someone sneering at me like that.

She's on foot, lounging, just keeping an eye on the mare....

...well, and on that herd of Shadow Sheep. I missed them at first--all I saw was a dark ground-hugging blue-gray mist, but when I really look, I can faintly see the fleecy grazers who generate the shadow.

This isn't the empty prairie it seemed! At all.

• Coyote girl drives wagon: from a play I saw years ago, by the Caravan Stage Company, who wandered the West Coast in horse-drawn wagons; in The Coyotes, a human girl ran off with a coyote pack.
• Coyote joins wolves: saw a book review by Patricia Briggs today; she's best known for her books on Mercy Thompson, a were-coyote who joins a werewolf pack.
• Who is she? Sex and play, I think.
• Ranchers don't value predators: in Little Things, Hannah Hinchman says her right-wing neighbors see wildlife as just pests--they don't care if all wild animals die out. They truly don't get that their land is less stable without them--already dry and bare from the lack of buffalo (encourage perennials, reduce erosion), beaver (raise water table & reduce fire risk) and wolf (reduce pests and streambed erosion--prey avoid streams where there's cover for attacks).
• Ranchers: workaholism. Starve my feelings and produce more art, writing and music!
• Big female critter digs holes: Hannah Hinchman's big dog Sisu in Little Things.
• Whack-a-mole game: as I typed this dream, I saw the prairie-dog holes on my desk! A zillion notes on projects I scatter my energy between.
• A sexy mare raises her tail: all that fanart of Celestia of course.
• Brit equestrienne: Edwin's sister in A Marvellous Light. She didn't protect him as a kid and is still (behind her genteel manners) irresponsible, even cruel.
• Saddle? In the dream the mare had a saddle marking her as owned by this troubling rider; but when I drew her, I unconsciously stripped it off--wanted her free.
• Blue-gray fog of the Shadowsheep: in A Marvellous Light, enemy agents hid their faces with a blue-gray blurring spell.
• ACTION? I think the dream's a warning. Coyote Girl and her wolves seem fine, even if the rancher fussed; but that lovely energetic mare was saddled with a woman I distrust--her sheep share traits of the very worst characters in A Marvellous Light. My anima Silky often appears as a playful mare, but tends to endure oppressors rather than fight. Am I saddled with workaholism? As a kid, classmates bashed me and adults didn't protect me; I learned people betray you. Art became my substitute. I work hard at it. Maybe too hard. The dream hints some of my inner selves--Coyote Girl, the wolves, and maybe the digging mare--are healthy now. But repression still has powers I barely see--snobbery, self-neglect, overwork... shadow sheep?

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