Common

you shouldn’t walk where the hemlock grows

She listens to the bereft mare as she mourns, her voice dwindling to little more than a whisper, nearly buried beneath the sound of the waves. Faolain listens, and lets the ghostly mare speak, for she knows that any words she might offer would be of no help right now. She can feel the heartache of the other mare, and has to momentarily clench her teeth at the nearly unbearable wave of grief that washes over her. It is not her own grief that she feels, but she feels it all the same, and there is a terrifying few seconds where Faolain must actually struggle against tears.

But then it fades, and the ghostly mare is asking Faolain a question. ”I came too late to see Cimarron before it sank,” she answers with a genuine tinge of regret in her voice. ”It took me a long time to come. I wish I had been able to see it before the sea claimed it.” It is true, though Faolain has thought little of Cimarron since claiming the Ridge. Even when she spent her days on the Crossing, she hadn’t ever really looked in its direction, but now she does. Her eyes take in the fractured spine of land that remains of the lost island, hardly visible in the heavy, humid atmosphere. ”What was it like?” she asks, suddenly bursting with curiosity. She wants to ask the painted mare a million questions about Cimarron but knows that this is certainly not the time, so she tucks them away for later, save the one question she believes will cause the least harm.

Faolain can feel the ebb and flow of the other mare’s sorrow as they stand there beneath the storm-darkened skies. She finds it difficult, every time the emotions roll upward in a frothing wave, to focus on her own thoughts and feelings. They seem to ride out the internal storm together, Faolain safe in her knowledge that her own self is still there within, tucked out of reach of the empathetic tide. Her companion does lean into her, and Faolain remains sturdy in the wet sand, helped somewhat by the fact that she is a little bit shorter than the white mare. She gives support for as long as it is needed.

Eventually, the pale mare pulls away to ask another question, and Faolain soberly shakes her head. ”I’m afraid not,” she says kindly, ”though it’s not the first time I’ve heard of it.” Though their credibility is questionable to say the least, Faolain had heard one other account of a green flash at the end of the day before coming to the islands, but she has never thought to look for it herself.

Names are exchanged (”Faolain, of the Ridge,” she says with a very soft hint of pride in her home) before they leave the beach for fresh water. From the Falls runs a stream that feeds into the sea, and they need only walk a short distance to access it. The trees lining the stream whisper amongst themselves in the wind, and raindrops splatter against the leaves. Faolain guards Charybdis dutifully as she drinks, though there is unlikely to be anyone out here in this storm.

”I don’t know much about green flashes,” she muses, ”but at the top of the Ridge you can see for miles out to sea. I suspect you need only look out at the right time.” She has to raise her voice a bit now to be heard above the wind, and her concern for the storm grows. ”After this weather passes, I can show you, if you’d like.”

mare | black | 14hh | akhal-teke