Florahorses
| Classification | Plant-bodied beast |
|---|---|
| Habitat | Meadow, swamp, ocean and mountain across Eslura |
| Size | Horse-sized; one carried three riders at once |
| Notable traits | Camouflage, takes features from its surroundings, sinks into the ground |
| Notable individuals | Kuma |
| First appearance | Sacred: Eslura's Calling |
Florahorses are horse-shaped beasts of Eslura whose bodies are grown from the plants around them. The bestiary appendix, which heads the entry in the singular as FLORAHORSE, says they come from the meadow, the swamp, the ocean and the mountains, that they become one with their surroundings and take features from the local environment into their form, and that they sink back into the ground for protection or for sleep.[1] They are common enough in Eslura to be proverbial: Trelluby tells Lumikki to "hold your florahorses" when she tries to leave her sickbed.[2]
Appearance
The shape is a horse's, but nothing else about one is. Kuma, seen by moonlight, had a body "made entirely out of dark-green grass, and its ears were leaves". Its mane and tail "were vines woven with pink and purple flowers", and its hooves were rough-barked like a tree trunk.[3]
Wild florahorses share the flower-woven tail, which they flick up behind them.[4][5] They whinny loudly enough to startle, graze in herds, and chew mouthfuls of sticks and long grass.[4] Calves travel with the herd.[5]
The appendix's own illustration is of a swamp florahorse, drawn with cattails and fins taken from its home ground.[1]
Sinking
A florahorse can disappear into the ground it is standing on. Bea watched Kuma kneel after a ride, and the grass on its back merged with the grass of the field and grew out to match its length until there was no trace of a horse at all, and then the animal sank away entirely.[3] The appendix presents the same behaviour as a hazard for walkers, who may wander onto a sleeping florahorse without seeing it.[1]
As mounts
Florahorses are ridden, and bareback. Alistair Archibald pulled Bea and Reagan Hideaway up behind him onto Kuma and carried them out of the forest and across the fields to a deserted village ahead of a pursuing Shadow Reaper, at a gallop Bea could only measure against a car on a highway. With nothing to sit on, Bea gripped the animal's sides beside her knees and found its hair felt exactly like artificial turf.[3] Whether a wild florahorse can be taken as a mount is not recorded. Barnaby Britto, climbing the lower slopes of Alakyer, glimpsed one bounding between the pines and thought how much easier the climb would be on one, but it was gone into the terrain before he could suggest it.[6]
Range
Sightings are scattered across Eslura and are not confined to any one kingdom. A herd grazes in a circular forest clearing on the road toward Treenode.[4] A florahorse and its calf were seen at the lake in the meadow below Galecrest, and bolted into the woods when a hidden Nelazgian scout snapped a stick.[5] One was glimpsed among the pines on Alakyer.[6]
Behind the scenes
The bestiary appendix at the back of both novels heads the entry FLORAHORSE and annotates the illustration with its cattails and fins. Book 2 reprints Book 1's page unchanged.[1] The appendix spells the name as one word and as two within the same paragraph; the novels' prose uses the one-word spelling, and the pronunciation guide at the back of both books lists it under species.[1][7]