“The Horse Named Luma”

Luma ran across a lavender plain that stretched further than any map would dare measure.

Her hooves left trails of soft light in the grass. She was a horse — not in disguise, not temporarily, but by choice. Her soul had once been human, but in paradise, she shed her old form like a robe too heavy for the dance. What she wanted now was to run, to breathe, to be nothing but wind and muscle and feeling.

The world gave it to her.

She had fur the color of starlight — silver with faint bands of midnight purple across her flanks — and her mane glowed when her emotions rose. Right now, it shimmered with joy. No fear of predators. No weight of words. Just movement.

At the edge of the plain, a grove of crystal apple trees waited. The apples were musical. When the wind passed through their branches, a soft chime rang out — not a sound made of air, but of memory. Each apple had a song it hummed, and when Luma nibbled one, it told her a dream someone once had.

She liked those dreams. Especially the ones about lovers who never stopped finding new ways to say “I missed you.”

A deer with golden antlers greeted her beneath the tallest tree. Its voice was like warm breath in winter.

“You’ve been galloping for days,” it said. “Rest?”

Luma neighed softly, the universal yes, and lay beside it.

They didn’t speak with words. They shared feelings — images — warmth. The deer gave her a vision of being the color green, and she gave it the sensation of running downhill forever with no pain in her legs.

Later that day, they traveled to the Ocean of Mirrors — a shallow, endless sea where animals and creatures of all forms came to admire their reflections, not out of vanity, but out of love. Each wave showed not just the current body, but every form the soul had ever taken. Luma saw herself as a girl once — black hair, fire in her eyes, rage at a world that never let her just be.

Then the mirror showed her this: the day she chose to shed that skin. She walked into the starlit river, and when she came out, she was herself — this creature — free.

Some humans nearby were bathing, laughing, throwing water that turned into butterflies mid-air. One of them approached her, holding a flute made of honeycomb.

“Luma,” he said with reverence. “You helped me once. On Earth. You were my teacher in grade school. You used to give me your lunch when I forgot mine. You probably don’t remember.”

She didn’t — but she remembered the feeling of doing it. That was enough.

He played a song for her on his honeycomb flute. It spoke in sounds she didn’t understand with her ears, but her soul cried softly to it.

That night, she slept beneath the floating lantern trees, their light pulsing in rhythm with distant galaxies. The deer curled beside her. A dream formed — a shared one.

She was now running on clouds, and the clouds were alive with music, and the music sang only one word, over and over again:

“You.”

In this dream, she laughed without lips. And the whole world shook in delight.