Clarity came to him slowly, and to begin with it was subtle. Mild apprehension just beneath his skin, he merely passed it off as natural, as nothing unusual. Because he wasn’t a carefree soul, not anymore, and therefore, always worried about something. So, he ignored it easily, focusing instead on his mountain, and listening in silence and stillness to the black and white mare as she spoke. And there it grew, beneath his dark hide, and by the time he realised, it was far too late.

He didn’t believe her, not at first, when she said that he would stay. After all, he’d never recalled stallions being allowed to stay here before, to linger long enough that their presence could no longer be called a visit. He did not open his mouth to question her though – he’d learned long ago that this course of action usually was a bad one on his part. It wasn’t that Balthazar expected swift correction or retaliation from this mare who was built like his mountain, nor that he expected her to act so rashly (for she seemed to have cantered herself now), but rather that he didn’t feel he had the right to question. He stood on the mountainside after all, and this was a different world from the world in the peak’s shadow.

Realisation grew stronger, and the apprehension set him on edge. The one eared, half blind and half deaf stallion was unsettled by Jezibelle’s posture, by her reaction to the other’s words. Balthazar wished that she’d just look at him. But then she did, and he regretted wanting such a thing. She was hurting, and Balthazar was so confused. Had he done something after all? Or was it something else that tore at her heart? Something to do with this other mare, who he suspecting might be related to her? No, it didn’t really matter what it was – she was in pain, and he was useless, unable to help her, unsure what to do. He turned his face away, for he feared she would see her pain mirrored in his eyes, and the last thing he wanted was to hurt her even more. At her single word, he dropped his head a little, and felt his chest tighten.

“I know,” he breathed, the words barely audible. They were flat, dead words, resigned and accepting of his incompetence. He wondered, detached from himself for a moment, where he’d gone wrong this time. And just as he felt he might have found the thing that had ruined it all, she spoke again, and for a second time, Balthazar was confused. She had been stupid? No. No that couldn’t be. She had done nothing! She’d done him no wrong. With a jerk of his head, Balthazar turned back to her, his face full of disbelief, and he found her with her head low. It broke him to see her so dejected. “No,” he spoke firmly this time, his muzzle low near hers, reaching to touch her and only doing so if she allowed it.

The moon-haired male straightened at the sound of Impazienza’s voice, and he shifted uneasily at the words she directed to her sister. And when she spoke again and included him, told him to come with her, he stared at her with his one seeing eye wide and suddenly nervous. He glanced to Jezibelle, as if hoping to take his lead from her, and when he saw her eyes lifting to meet his, he hoped, only to feel more than a little disappointed when she made no move, gave him no sign of what she wanted. “I, uh… I.” Balthazar recalled that the other mare had asked him for his name, and he didn’t want to make things worse by appearing to be rude as well as pathetic. What is his name? Moonwalker he wanted to say, because that’s who Jezibelle had called him, and that was all he wanted to be. Named by his mountain, and not his dead and terrible parents, and not himself, so weak, so spineless. But he bit his tongue, because he had already failed her once in some way that was still hidden from him. “Balthazar,” he said finally, naming himself to the mare.

His eyes had not left Jezibelle’s face, and the truth was that he had been waiting for her to say it. If there was anyone he wanted to speak for him, he wanted it to be her. And it would have been nice to hear her say his name. It could have been like she was introducing a friend.

But was he? A friend? No, he must not doubt! But… What if it wasn’t her that he doubted? What if this was all just him hoping, and believing, and coming here with a fool’s heart. Was that why she had called herself stupid, because he was here and wanting to give more than she asked for, more than she wanted? Had he somehow misread what was between them? He was beginning to see, now, and what he saw made him feel cold. Her words, when they finally came, stung him like flecks of ice.

“You are wrong.” Balthazar’s voice shook, and he paused to steady it. “You’re both wrong,” the words were quiet, and disappeared quickly in the pre-dawn air. He turned his head to the mare who stood only a little way higher up the slope. “How can I be the best for anyone?” he asked her, his voice injured, strained. “When I’m so lost and broken?” He drew in a fragile, trembling breath. “And I believed I was so close, too. To finding…” He trailed off, his words fading to nothing.

It was hard to look at her, because he was devastated. He’d lived his whole life in awe of this mountain, and long ago knew he’d never reach its summit – that he’d never belong there. But he’d found another mountain, and he’d hoped to find his place behind her, or even beside her as an equal – asking nothing from her but her presence when she wanted to give it. But he was in deep shade, shadows cast by two mountains, and he couldn’t see his way. Didn’t know where else he’d go.

“I did something wrong,” he murmured. “I knew I would eventually.” He tried to make his voice light, as if his mistake were amusing, so that she wouldn’t see how deep he was in the darkness. He had a vague idea that it was something to do with his being here, considering that the hurt in Jezibelle’s eyes had come after those heavy words that tied him to this pinnacle of rock and earth. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” he whispered, taking no comfort from his words, because they tasted false on his tongue. Nothing was okay. “I will always hold this against myself.” He’d done something wrong, and should be punished for it.

Balthazar drew away, then, against the will of his being. He put space between them; before she would, because he believed it would hurt just a little bit less. It did not, but he feared that if he stopped moving, he wouldn’t be able to start again. And so he moved numbly towards the mare who stood waiting for him, and he would follow her to wherever she would lead him. It was too hard to fight the darkness, too tiring to hope. He was a cursed survivor – alive when the rest of his family were dead. And he had always been the weakest of them all. This was what he got – a life longer than those who’d come before, but one that was empty save for loneliness.

His deaf ear lay back against the tangle of his silver mane, and he looked back once, to Jezibelle, and beyond her to the worlds that lay scattered at the base of this high and lonely world. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice strange and distant. “I should not have come.”