got lost in the promise of a love i never know
SHADOWS CHASE ME FAR FROM HOME
“I want more important things for myself than happiness.” That was what she had told him. “Hope. Loyalty.” And for a time, she believed she’d found those things. But then Asche had disappeared. Sinopa had stayed behind, letting go of her twins so that she could say with her sister. And Wenonah... Her beautiful, perfect daughter… The ground started shaking, and it felt like Tolinka’s whole world was tumbling down around her. Rocks, dirt, and then silence. Outside, in the night, there was not a breath of wind. And Tolinka was alone. Again. For days, she wouldn’t leave the mouth of the blocked cave that was now her daughter’s resting place, not even Sinopa could draw her away.
In the end, it was the truth that made her run. Asche was gone, and Sinopa had abandoned her foals in order to stay.
She returned to the Falls, where she’d first met the medicine hat who’d vanished with her heart. And there, standing in the moonlit pool was a young stallion – not the one she’d loved and lost, but another, one whose eyes told a beautiful and tragic story. And she had stayed with him that night, finding healing in his words, comfort in his touch. But come the dawn, guilt overpowered any desire she had to stay with the bay and white boy, and she left without saying goodbye, because she’d had enough of endings. She didn’t look back as she swam, because she knew he’d be standing on the shore, watching another soul leave him, and her heart wouldn’t survive being broken even one more time.
Tolinka cut a lonely figure, lingering by her collapsed cave low on the ridge of mountains she called home. Though perhaps ‘home’ wasn’t the right term. Home was where the heart was, and Tolinka didn’t have much of hers left. What little hadn’t gone with Asche had been broken by the loss of her first child to survive beyond their first day, bruised by the tender and hurting soul of one who claimed to dance with wolves, and betrayed by her sister, who had given up what Tolinka had wanted most. The smoky black tobiano had lost weight, and the brightness that had once shone out of her was all but reduced to a flickering spark, glowing like the most distant of stars.
t o l i n k a
i remember when my heart was made of gold
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