i have a mouth, and i must
Hoof deep
River Song knew not to go into the woods.
Mommy told her it wasn’t safe.
When River Song once tried to walk on the trail to the woods, Mommy stretched her hoof out and blocked her from going any further. Then Mommy looked at her with a blank stare, and blinked a little faster than normal. And then she took River Song back to the cottage for supper that’d gone cold because she'd stayed out for too long. That was how Mommy showed how much she loved her.
River Song came to the woods to get blue things. But what blue things? There were many blue things around her. The water was blue. The sky was blue. Was that the blue thing that she came here for? She tried to reach up with one of her hooves. It just sank deeper into the quicksand.
River Song didn’t know many words. So she couldn’t remember what blue things exactly. She couldn’t speak the words, only write them down. And she didn’t write stuff down a lot. So words slipped from her mind a lot.
The words slipped away when she could not speak them.
Knee deep
She continued to sink into the quicksand.
She was too deep in the woods to be easily seen. She couldn’t stamp her hoof. She tried to whistle. She could not. She tried to click with her tongue. It blended in with the sound of the tree frogs.
Some of her classmates at the playground had dared her to go get some secret blue things in the woods. There was a rumor that the secret blue things would make a kirin talk. No one knew if the rumor was true, but her friends dared her to find out.
She went into the woods in the afternoon. The sun was out. She went down that trail that Mommy told her not to go. She felt herself stop, but Mommy’s hoof wasn’t actually there. It was funny. She felt a feeling that made her want to expel air uncontrollably, but she stopped herself. She kept walking.
She walked into the brush to look for some blue things. She walked into a vine. It took a few minutes for her to untangle herself. But the rest of the walk was quite smooth. She found a clearing with a patch of brown dirt. She stepped into the brown patch.
And that’s how she ended up in quicksand. She replayed it in her head a dozen times. It felt like she was doing something by replaying it. But nothing happened. She wasn’t even telling the story to anyone. A squirrel came by once and looked at her. She let her jaw drop, but only thin air came out. The squirrel didn’t hear. It just cocked its head to the side and nibbled on an acorn.
Then it went away.
She replayed the story again in her mind. Maybe if she made her life flash before her eyes now, then the actual death later on wouldn’t be so bad.
Belly deep
She wondered if Mommy would miss her.
River Song knew that Mommy loved her. She knew that Mommy loved her when she’d clean her plate at supper, and Mommy would cock her head, flash her horn twice, and smile. That probably meant love. And if she loved her, Mommy would miss her.
She loved a lot of things about Mommy. She missed those lot of things. She missed that day when Mommy walked her back home from school, and they went to get shaved ice at the stand.
She missed that other day when Mommy walked her back home from school, and they got something else from another stand.
She missed that other day when someone else walked her back from somewhere else, and Mommy was there but not there there, and she got something else from some other place. There were at least fifteen other days she could remember that were like that. But they were all something elses.
She missed that other day when…
She missed that…
She missed…
She missed…
She missed…
She choked. Breathing under quicksand was hard.
If she had a different word for every single day, she would miss Mommy longer.
But she didn’t. So she stopped missing Mommy.
Her face neutralized into a blank stare.
Neck deep
Maybe she would talk, in the afterlife.
She tried to think about all the words that she would say. “Blue.” “Woods.” “Mommy.” “Quicksand.” How did they sound? Did it matter? Could she just say whatever sound she wanted, and let it mean that word?
When she reads a word, her mind comes up with a sound for it. “Blue” is a splick sound. Like the sound of blue water, when you drop a pebble in it. “Woods” is like a shcrunch sound. Like the sound of leaves in the trees and under her hooves.
At first “Mommy” sounded like a warm, honeyed mmm sound. But now she wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure at all. Maybe a sort of unhhhh sound. Or a schwaaaa sound. Like being pulled apart on a roaring river.
But she knew how to call for help. Calling for help was easy. Just scream. Inhale, then exhale and let the air tickle your vocal cords. Even though she had never done it before, she knew that were she able to do it, it would be really easy. She wouldn’t even need to know what “blue” meant. Or what “woods” meant. Or “quicksand”. Or “Mommy.” All she needed to do was scream.
Scream!
…
…
…
She burst out crying.
She stopped crying after she realized her tears wouldn’t wet the sand enough for her to get out.
Chin deep
After thirty minutes of staring, River Song realized that the trees were weeping.
She used to think that the trees were singing every time the wind blew. But they were actually weeping. The quicksand pressing against her ears changed the sound.
They stronger the wind, the farther they swayed, and the louder they wept. The trees must feel like they’re free when they move in the wind. As if they’re flying, just like the birds and bees all around them. But no matter what, they’ll be trapped. Their roots will be pinned to the dirt. As long as they live, they’ll never be free. They know that. And that’s why they weep. They wanted to be free, just like her. And even though they couldn’t, they never stopped hoping.
But there was no point in knowing all that. Knowing that couldn't change anything. It couldn't make her freer. No more, no less.
It was the same fate.
She wiggled her head, just like the tree. Her hooves were the roots. The quicksand froze them in place, like concrete.
Her head sank in.
She didn’t bother to open her mouth to take in one last breath.
I'm back~
I wrote this quick kiloword(ish) story to try to get me out of my non-writing funk. Not very holiday-themed, I know 
, but I hope you enjoyed it. Happy holidays to everyone!
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Deeply unsettling, but with some great worldbuilding about the kirins thrown in.
Well this was rather distressing, but I did enjoy the Kirin worldbuilding yet again. Poor River Song, I didn't think of this, but of course, this is an issue that would come up in a totally silent society with dampened emotions. One wonders how many must have been unable to be rescued...
Wow, this is pretty dark.
But it does bring up some interesting questions. Like, shouldn’t the Kirin at least be able to SCREAM or make some sort of other sound with their mouths? Like if they’re dying or being attacked or, I don’t know, sinking in quicksand?!
Not holiday themed, no, but quicksand makes for a good analogy for the state of the world at the moment.
Shit that’s a great story concept!
Why isn't there a tragedy tag?
10595444
I believe silent kirin cannot vocalize at all. If they were able to make screaming noises at each other, that would defeat the original purpose of going into the stream of silence: to cool tempers.
Thanks for reading.
10595635
10595444
The episode confirms this to be the case, given that the kirin in Sound of Silence make no sound whatsoever.
Hm
*choking* Ooof. Oooooooof. That is literally one of my worst fears. Slowly sinking, unable to do anything, and not able to make a sound. 😱
So you believe that the Kirin are unable to make any sound whatsoever down to the most base of animal grunts or sighs...this brings up an interesting question regarding language. How do the Kirin have words or writing? The only thing I can immediately think of is a very primitive picture based language that is built on concepts like hot pain for fire or tall hard for trees/mountains. I can't remember exactly what all happened in the episode, but if they'd been soundless for more than a generation or two it would definitely not fix itself ala rainbow power poof.
Something else that I ponder from another story about the Kirin, is that perhaps their innate duality made their emotions keener than most creatures experience. Also, like how in the Crystal Empire the Crystal Heart reflects and enhances emotional energy perhaps Kirin emotions are also. So when a Kirin is happy, you can't help being happy as well same for sadness and anger. So two Kirin get in an argument that anger spreads like a disease until all the Kirin are filled with an unquenchable rage which if their fire is not mere illusion like when Twilight tried to figure out Pinkie Sense (tm) would be catastrophic.
11449339
Two words: sign language (or similar). IRL, deaf people can still develop complex language skills through signing, writing, and reading.
My understanding is that the vow of silence lasted less than a generation--if I remember correctly, if you pull up the original argument scene in A Kirin Tale, you see the same generation of kirin as the present day. If the silence was longer than a generation, the situation would be very much like you describe: no one would actually know how to vocalize words when the foal's breath came into effect.
11450297
So if you are going by the Show's timeline, this sign-language is more of a "back-up" or "stop-gap" measure than anything. And if you are using the Canon timeline, how long before FS and AJ "save the day"?
World-building is a thing I really like, so yeah I like asking questions and learning.