He turned at the sound of approach, a little later perhaps than another might have, thanks to his poor hearing, tying his heart down ever more firmly. Jezibelle wasn’t here (maybe because he was), wasn’t looking for him, didn’t want to see him. He knew that if he went to their spot at the base of the mountain, it was unlikely she’d be there either. Her scent was nowhere, and it seemed to Balthazar that the mountain air was cooler because of this.

The skinny, silver-haired boy turned, and he saw not the mare that was his mountain, but someone else entirely. The colour of her coat made him happy and sad at the same time, and thinking that it was unfair of him to compare her in a small and unconscious way, Balthazar focussed instead on what was different about this one, and he found a great many wonderful things. He’d never seen scars like hers before, and she wore them like armour, like they showed how strong she was, that she was a survivor. Balthazar, although baring very few visible scars, wore them with shame, as though they shone like beacons so that all could see his weak and weary heart. The scars he carried, even though they couldn’t be seen, marked him – not as a survivor, a fighter, but rather as a casualty that fate had taken pity on.

Her voice, her words, it was like they breathed some kind of life into him again, after the darkness of his cave, so that he was warmed on the outside by the new sun, and warmed on the inside by the sound of a stranger. “I can assure you I am no myth,” he said softly, his gaze settling on her white face. “I’m not really the kind to leave much of a mark anywhere… But, as for the rumours, they are true, unfortunately.” He may have smiled then, a tired and fleeting smile, if her attention had not shifted in that moment. Balthazar lowered his head, and had started to turn so that she couldn’t see (and so he couldn’t either, for his blind eye would be towards her), but he stopped, and turned back, his shame and sorrow leaving him, whisked away by the morning breeze.

He couldn’t remember a time when one had compared themselves so readily to one such as he. At least not with spoken words that drew attention to physical similarities between them. He looked at her, really looked and saw that she was missing an ear too, on the same side as he. And he appreciated the vast differences between them, once again confronted by her scars, and silently awed by what they meant. She had fought, or been attacked at some point, and she had retaliated, perhaps, or fled. Balthazar wondered what had befallen her, and how long ago, and what she had been through to get to this place – this mountain that he would always love with his whole heart.

“It seems we do,” his voice was lighter now, and his seeing eye a little brighter. “And look! I’m nearly as big as you. I was beginning to think I’d entered a land of giants.” He turned aside, and looked down the face of the mountain, and beyond. “I’ve always felt small, you know. Inside. And I feel it most strongly standing here. I don’t quite understand,” he said, deep in thought. “Anywhere else, and I’d run, because it would be too much, too hard. But I could never leave this place, not really.” Balthazar turned back to the bay mare, and this time the smile did appear briefly. “It’s something. Something to reach for. Growing bigger, that is. And I know it’s impossible physically, and near-impossible any other way, but I think trying, anyway, would be worth it.”

She spoke again, and Balthazar found himself savouring her company, and a little irritated that, by his own actions, he had not met this stranger sooner. No, not a stranger. Áshildr. Balthazar thought the name sounded almost otherworldly, and liked to think it would sit on his tongue lightly, as if it were sun and wind combined. “I am Balthazar, Áshildr,” he said, and may have said more, had not another approached, one who was again not the one he hoped for. But this one, she was familiar in a faded kind of way, and brought with her memories of love.

He was surprised to see her. Not because he thought she would be anywhere else, because for as long as he could remember, she had always been here, as much a part of the mountain as its grass and earth and stone – as ever present and there-and-gone as the winds that rolled down the mountainside from its very Peak, cold sometimes, relentless and revolutionary always. Life changing in the subtlest of ways. The surprise was that she had come down to speak to him. Time had changed them both, but there was a raw and restless energy to the black mare that had never failed to trap his breath in his throat when he was a timid and vulnerable slip-of-a-boy. And even after all these years, having those eyes on him, hearing that voice, the air still stuttered in his lungs.

“Heart,” he said, because he remembered (though the memory was faded around the edges) that this was what Corinth had called her. This was who she had been to the grey Arabian who had saved his life once, in a way. She was gone now, but he would never forget her. He shook his head and cleared his throat. “It’s been a while, Black Heart Machine,” he said softly, unwanted memories stirring of another grey, another lost-and-gone soul that served as a connection between the subdued silver and black boy, and the shadow mare who would forever be mighty in Balthazar’s eyes.