Common

Kvothe’s moods were as mercurial as mercurial as a summer afternoon - by turns sunny and tempestuous, and never lingering for long in one place. The last remnants of her pain were quickly banished by the kindness of the boy’s smile, and the gentle note in his voice. In that moment, he was radiant; a sun that had broken through the clouds of her sorrow. The chestnut mare edged closer to Ironclad, no longer able to contend with the need that thrummed within her. Only when her copper skin brushed his pale shoulder did Kvothe stop, lowering her head until her chin rested in the hollow of the young stallion’s withers. Basking in his warmth and closeness, the Friesian mare allowed her dark brown eyes to fall closed for an instant, and inhaled deeply of the scents that clung to his coat.

Perhaps Kvothe should have clung to her reservations and kept her distance, given the pain that she had known. But she couldn’t. She was too glad, too grateful, to be anything but alone. And - unbeknownst to the tall, slender mare - she was obeying the pulsing call of a deeper instinct that had been awakened within her. It made Kvothe bolder and more reckless than she might otherwise have been; under any other circumstances, the flighty mare would have shied away from physical touch, and would certainly never have initiated it.

“I was fortunate then, as I am now,” was the only response that Kvothe offered to Ironclad’s statement. In time, she did not doubt that she would share more of her past, but for now she longed for nothing more than to escape it. Her feelings for Narene, in particular, were conflicted. The old mare had been like a second mother to the chestnut filly, who would not likely be standing here today without the guidance and care she’d received. But Narene’s betrayal had hurt the most. Worse than the pain of Kvothe’s torn flesh had been the pain of her broken heart, of knowing that it had been the matriarch who had inflicted the wound. And as the name she’d been given would always remind her of the old mare’s kindness, the scar she carried would also remind her of Narene’s cruelty.

“Your home - is it far?” the Friesian mare wondered aloud, pausing to rake her teeth gently over the ridge of Ironclad’s spine - scraping away some of the sea’s brine that clung to his coat. “I will go with you immediately if the need is urgent, but it may be wise for me to rest before we go - especially if it involves a swim.” Of course, though Kvothe’s lids felt heavy and her mind weary, physically she was still keyed-up, her body as tense and hard as if it were carved from stone. But she thought that - given time - she might be able to drift into slumber, so long as Ironclad was beside her.

Lipping a wayward tendril of the young stallion’s mane to smooth it back into place, Kvothe allowed her mind to wander while she awaited his answer. She wondered what her new home would be like - if it could compare to the beauty that she had left behind her. And she feared what sort of creatures might live there. Ironclad seemed kind, but that didn’t mean that none of his subjects could be cruel. Circumstances might have kept Kvothe’s heart young and her thoughts innocent, but she had already tasted the bitterest dregs that life could offer once. To do so again would break the purity of her spirit, and sour her to the world.

Though she could not have known it, that had been precisely the fate of the last mare to be exiled from her birthplace.