come one, come all, to the greatest show on earth:

Everest and Silber reached the site first, leaning forward into their saddles, gripping their respective horses with their thighs. They leant back sharply in unison, their horses sliding to a smoky halt. Bonbon, Everest’s mild-mannered paint mare, came to a sharper halt than the pretty Arabian stallion Silber had commandeered. Silber grinned gap-toothedly and crowed in triumph as his steed drifted a whole metre further than Everest’s.

“I could’ve done that on that horse!” Everest objected, throwing Bonbon’s reins down. Silber’s only response was to his finger and thumb on his forehead in the shape of an ‘L’ and crow louder. His silvery-toned skin – his namesake – gleamed in the burst of sunlight beaming down through the gap in the trees. In the forest they’d just ridden through, his skin had been the dull grey of dusty metal.

Casting a jealous eye over the Arabian, Everest swung his leg over and dismounted. Silber followed suit, patting his beautiful, solid black horse on the neck and reaching into his pocket to offer him a sugar cube.

“Does this area look big enough to you?” He checked with Everest, glancing around the clearing with his off-black lips downturned.

Everest pushed his floppy black hair out of his multi-coloured eyes, looking around the perimeter again, before casting his gaze skywards. Overheard, his golden-bodied griffin, Falke, was circling the over the treetops to mark the spot for the rest of the family. They couldn’t be more than twenty minutes behind at worst; the two friends had dashed ahead in an eagerness to flex their horses’ speed. Falke had been released earlier in the day to find the spot to set up camp, a task he usually excelled at, but Silber was right: they’d barely fit the main marquee in here and certainly none of the other tents. Perhaps this was just the largest clearing in the forest so Falke had settled for it instead of trying to travel beyond the perimeters of the Kingswood.

“Wait here,” Everest advised, rolling his shoulders back, “I’ll do a quick scout on horseback to see if there isn’t somewhere more suitable nearby.” He held out his hand palm-up, smirking. “But I’ll need the faster horse.”

Silber rolled his eyes but relinquished the stallion’s reins. Everest swung effortlessly up into the saddle, marvelling at the Arabian’s lithe muscles aquiver beneath its gleaming black coat. It didn’t have a name yet, but it would soon if Blü had anything to say about it. The little rascal had taken it upon herself to personally name every animal she ever came across in the most girlish manner. She was the culprit behind Bonbon’s vomit-inducing denomination.

Picking a direction at random, Everest kicked the stallion into gear and leapt back into the treeline, weaving around the trunks of various hues. This forest was warmer than the ones in northern Europe where his family had travelled extensively, but it felt more… alive. It took an eagle eye and razor sharp memory to recall direction in this place, especially since the forest floor seemed to shift and reform of its own accord. Everest didn’t particularly have either, but he did have Falke. As long as he could see his griffin, he couldn’t get lost.

Time was impossible to keep beneath a canopy which restricted the view of the sun. Everest guessed he had travelled for maybe half an hour – finding no clearings larger than the one Falke had located and with no other soul to admire bar his horse and his reflection in a puddle – before he heard the tinkling of a stream. The Arabian turned towards it instinctively, so Everest gave him free rein. His stallion pushed eagerly through the undergrowth and splashed into a shallow but fast-moving brook, lowering his head to gulp up the water. Everest glanced upwards and frowned, unable to see Falke through the thick layer of trees. He twisted sideways and pushed himself up onto his feet. Standing confidently on the horse’s saddle, Everest shielded his eyes against the sunlight streaming in through the gaps in the leaves and squinted, trying to pick out his griffin’s familiar form.

dankeschön,

everest