inka

Leaving her father behind was simultaneously a relief and a burden. Inka had not been alone in a year, and had not had a moment to herself in all that time. Now she was free to dwell on anything she wanted, but at what cost? Though she had been glad – in a selfish and twisted way – to be rid of her miserable old disabled father, only now that she was alone did she remember that she absolutely hated being alone. It was only during solitude that she found herself ruminating on everything in her life that had gone sour: those things that she normally pushed far from her mind when she was around others. She had struggled for so long to be a strong mare, but when she was alone it was as if some invisible force sapped away all her strength and left her as just another stereotype, just another mare incapable of coping with her emotions.

That night – the first night away from her father – Inka broke her record streak and cried for the first time in months. She cried until she was so tired she could no longer hold her eyelids open, and then she dreamed. When she awoke that morning to the rumbling of the falls, feeling surprisingly rested, she knew exactly where she had to go.

Winter made the going slow. Once, she would have found it easy to navigate all the ice and snow – having been born on the tundra – but she had left her homeland over a decade ago, and was out of practice. She was warm at the very least, carrying the thick black coat and feathers that her line was known for, and as the land began to rise in gentle, heavily-forested hills, there was no shortage of food (provided she was willing to dig or stand on her hind legs for it). For weeks Inka travelled alone, crying every night beneath the boughs of evergreens and fervently missing her loved ones. Then one morning she rose and walked out onto a little ledge, where the trees cleared to reveal a beautiful snow-capped mountainous landscape, bathed in the peaches and pinks and lavenders of dawn, and something changed in her.

She did not cry again.

The seasons were changing, but the further into the mountains Inka travelled, the more stubborn the snow seemed to be, clinging to every available surface and resisting the warm rays of the spring sun. She had never climbed such great slopes before, but she came to understand that the higher elevations were what kept this magical place so unseasonably cool. Not that Inka minded: her blood was Het Vuur’s, and his blood was famously hot. Their line was made and suited for the cold.

She had paused on a relatively flat stretch of land sheltered by trees to drink from a tiny, freezing cold brook, when her nose caught a strange, acrid smell. She stood quiet and still and tested the air for some time, feeling uneasy. Inka had only been a mother once in her life, and a very long time ago, but she could never forget the smell of giving birth. She listened for some time, but all was relatively silent; if there was indeed a laboring mare nearby, she was keeping exceptionally quiet and there was no certain way to know where she was. It might not even be a mare: maybe a doe?

Finally Inka finished satiating her thirst and was preparing to move on when she caught the smell again, stronger this time. Yet still she could not hear anything. Her instincts told her to move on, for the smell might attract predators, but something held her back. What if the mother is injured? Or dead? What if the child needs looking after? That was good enough reason for her to investigate, in her mind. Thus, to the best of her ability, the Friesian mare lifted her nose to the air and followed the odorous trail through the trees and across the snow-laden ground.

She stumbled upon them much quicker than she had anticipated: not one, but two foals – a matching set of gold and white twins – and a small mother standing over them, looking haggard and weary but definitely not dead. Inka stopped in her tracks and hesitated, aware that she may have just overstepped her boundary and – besides – might have been quite intimidating with her great height. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she apologized sincerely, and hesitated, knowing she must choose her words carefully. New mothers could be unpredictable, she knew from experience. “Are – are you all right?”

thirteen – 17hh – friesian