In the end, the most difficult part of their decision was crossing the ocean.
The deep blue-green water roiled and rolled and roared but Þoka wasn’t afraid and she told it so. “Fuck them and fuck you!” the little blue roan mare yelled over the waves, stamping at the shallows and then ducking her head to snap at the splash. The snort she uttered was both irritated and satisfied before she tossed her thick black forelock out of the way of one eye and leveled her gaze at her friend. Ready? her look said. “Let’s kick our heels free of this dungheap,” she crowed, and with a buck and cow-kick trundled right into the frigid water, striking out for more favorable shores.
At some point, as her short legs churned and churned beneath her, Þoka lost sight of Fjö∂ur. Her small head turned like a periscope, ears swiveling similarly, but it was impossible to see anything beyond the rolling blue-green water and the cerulean sky. “Fjö∂ur!” She shrieked. “Fjö∂ur!” She bobbed for a bit in the waves, legs working to turn her in a tight circle so she could scan every horizon, but she couldn’t tread water forever and finally, with a glance skyward to double check she was still headed the right way, was forced to kick onward.
“If you’re not standing on the sand when I get there, Hel help me, I will drag your ass from these depths,” Þoka muttered, sustaining her energy by imagining all the frightful ways she would punish Fjö∂ur if her friend didn’t beat her to the beach. It worked for awhile, at least until a wave swamped her from behind—coward!—and tumbled her head over tail under the surface, forcing water up her nose and disorienting her further when she finally surfaced, coughing, and made her final push for the security of dry land.
Þoka is successful, but as she stands dripping on a foreign shore and trembling with fatigue she considers it no kind of victory at all, for the beach stretching away to either side of her is empty. |