white as a cotton field and sharp as a knife
When Faolain had woken up a few moments earlier, her dreams had faded quickly, not allowing her to think on them for longer than a few seconds. She had thought there had been no dreams, as she usually experienced shallow, dark nothingness when she slept, but now she wasn’t so sure. The stallion had looked at her with recognition for a second, and that threw her off. Was he familiar as well? Had she just tricked her mind into mirroring his expression of recognition, or had she actually seen him before?
In her travels, she had engaged with horses of a myriad of different cultures and backgrounds. Faolain was ambitious and ravenously curious, but she had been a nomad for so long that many of the faces she’d seen in her life blurred together in her memories, but on rare occasions she dreamed of the people she’d met. For a few brief seconds after Iscariot’s expression changed back to one of almost disappointment— for which Faolain could not blame him, though of course nobody likes being the recipient of a disappointed gaze—she thought maybe he’d appeared in a forgotten dream last night. Or maybe someone who looked like him.
Most likely, it was just her mind playing tricks on her. Calculated as the inky mare was, she had always been deeply empathetic, and this wasn’t the first time she’d emotionally mirrored someone else on accident. It was also entirely unlikely she’d never come across another pale stallion in her life; the chances of him looking similar to one of the blurry, poorly-preserved faces of her memory were realistically pretty high. She gave her head a slight shake to rid herself of the weirdness the emotional mirroring always caused her to feel, and put the thoughts out of her mind as Iscariot spoke.
His voice was quiet enough that Faolain took half a step closer so she could hear him better. The empathetic little voice in her head was trying to get her to pity him; he was lost and so was his sister, but they weren’t even lost together, making their chances of finding each other without help fairly low; but she continued to silence that voice. This was an adult stallion, and pity was not going to help him. She imagined he might be offended if he could hear the gentle, motherly voice inside Faolain’s head, telling him everything would be okay and he just needed to be brave. Frustrated with the intrusive, unhelpful voice, Faolain gave her head another slight shake.
“Iscariot,” she said, considering his strange way of introducing himself. “Is that not your name anymore?” She wasn’t sure if he’d be willing to answer that question. She knew it was probably very personal, and she didn’t press on it if he remained silent, but Faolain by nature was curious and was driven to ask at least the one time. Her mind once more flipped back to the compelling voice of empathy, and she wanted to tell him that she could help, though she knew her knowledge of this island and its inhabitants was extremely limited. She couldn’t lie to him. The little black mare sighed.
“My name is Faolain,” she said. Her eyes swept over the tall stallion, noting his pained stance and the tired way he was holding himself up. “I don’t know how much help I can offer you. I’m new to this island as well, and I have no friends here. But I have just rested and I have energy. If you need to rest, I can remain in the area in case Ravaini is close by or comes looking for you.”
The sky was turning milky yellow as the sun crept above the horizon somewhere behind the clouds and trees. They were far enough away from the ocean that Faolain could not smell the brine, but she could faintly hear the sound of waves as they beat the shore with residue angst from the storm the night before. She wondered if Iscariot’s sister was still out there, or if she had washed up on the Crossing somewhere as well, or if she had been swept away to the other islands of which Faolain had no knowledge except that of their existence.
