The truth dawns quickly on Kuráž, but unlike the rising of the sun, it leaves him a little cold, and something twists in his belly.
“I don’t - I didn’t mean to...” His throat burns with emotion as he registers the way the air has turned so silent and still, like even the Mountain itself is holding its breath. And the dark colt, all speckled with tiny flecks of white, feels like he has done something wrong even though there is nothing in B ožena’s gaze to indicate she feels anything other than the love she’s always shown him. No anger, no blame. Just a softness so deep that Kuráž felt safe every time he looked into her dark eyes, because he knew for a certainty that she would never leave him.
But Kuráž, though he was young and innocent, was not unaware of the unique makeup of the Peak herd, and the antagonistic relationship that existed between the Mountain mares and the stallions who squatted in the Lagoon that lay to the south. Was it for this reason that the dark stallion he’d led all the way here was already speaking of departure? (Because maybe they would never truly belong – with Božena yes, but not
here, among mares who chose this place to get away from stallions). Edging towards addressing this, even though the words he spoke only skimmed the surface of his thoughts on the matter, the colt turned first to glance at the stallion. It occurs to him that he never asked for the older male’s name. He hadn’t felt the need to because they were not strangers.
This is not to say that the stallion’s name did not matter – on the contrary, once he learned it, Kuráž would write it upon his heart alongside Božena’s, because they would always be part of him.
“If he leaves, can I go and visit him, please?” Kuráž turned his broad, rounded muzzle back towards the Peak’s Prime Minister. And he opens his mouth to speak again, but for several moments, the words did not come, not until he swallowed the lump that sat in his throat, though there was no relief from the dryness of his tongue, nor the anxiety that settled heavily on his chest (hauntingly reminiscent of the lonely days he’d spent alone in the shadow of the Mountain, before a pale stranger had led Božena to him.
“I’m sorry if I did something wrong,” he began his explanation, not because he felt it was expected of him by either of the tall, magnificent and dark figures that flanked him front and back, but because he needed them to know how he felt, what he wanted.
“I just wanted you to be happy,” Kuráž murmured to the mare, all too aware of the quiver in his voice.
“And I don’t want him to be alone.”
At the end of the day, he was just a boy, and without knowing it, his words hinted at that which he subconsciously feared: that he was not enough. Not enough to bring Bozena lasting happiness, or to banish loneliness from the stallion’s heart.
But love was stronger than fear, and he would try. For all of his life he would try. Because they’d all lost so much, and Kuráž was convinced he’d never find souls more worthy to receive every good thing than the two that stood with him now.
