Her voice has been caught in her throat for so long that it is no wonder it is stone and ice when it comes loose and spills out into the open, curling coy around the both of them, bent fingers and crooked smiles. Impazienza rises, unfurled wings like a bird, and matches it. Derry tips her head and this becomes a dance between them; for each to see the other mirrored in the depths of their eyes, slipping between the cracks and bleeding into open spaces.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, then, Impazienza. I am glad that you found me now rather than half-frozen beneath the sunrise,” the edge in her voice is softer, but it never fades off completely, as though she is always on edge, always careful.

But now, too, she is flippant, turning her face towards the dark shape of her fellow receding into the night; the moon and stars are bright, this far up, and the half-light is mocking, split lips and shallow breaths is it ever as black as pitch, up on the mountainside?

Impazienza lies: or at least, Derry thinks that she does.

(A mare such as she would be bothered by petty things such as cold; ice and snow and bitter biting winds would never break her. Where Derry would buckle at the knees, Impazienza would hold her head against the storm and weather it alone, bold, and uncomplaining.)

Nevertheless she is glad of the courtesy, and dips her brow in deference.

“I have come from dust and unbearable brightness; the snow is a welcome change, if not a little difficult for me to bear,” she admits her weaknesses readily now, when before they would have been secrets for her to carry forever; she feels light, full of air, as if she could jump into the abyss beyond the mountain paths and float down towards the ocean. With a sigh low in her throat she steps closer towards the woman who she might, someday soon, come to call friend, and they begin the journey back towards milder climes.

She can see her older footprints as she walks, low and deliberately for balance, and crushes them beneath her hooves with a barely concealed diffidence.

“It seemed right,” she says, eventually, her voice puncturing the stillness between them. She smooths it down, then, soft over ruffled feathers: “to reach the top. The mountain is a metaphor; the peak is the pinnacle.”

Her shoulders are loose, but she is much less than easy, herself. The relaxed lines of her muscles are manufactured. Her voice is hard again when she continues:

“I feel as if there is much for us to overcome. I came because I have nowhere else to go. I came because I cannot bear dominion. I came because I want to help.”