there is a feeling of change in the air and Božena is not sure what to make of it. she has never wished for time to stand still more than she does now. kuraz sits on the cusp of boyhood, and she watches each day as he grows taller and wiser. there is not much fear in her heart that he will leave her, not soon anyway and not for good, but still it pains her to seem him grow. and then there is Kunžak’s return.

even though they had spent so long apart, being beside him again is as familiar as drawing a breath. it is right even if they had argued and parted ways. it feels petty now, what had sent them scrambling apart from each other. Božena can hardly bear to think of it still because it angered her… not in the way it used to, when she wished him to be more for her than he thought he could… but because she had asked so much without thinking of what it might cost her. it hadn’t really occurred to her that he would leave, and for so long, and she had stubbornly refused to go and beg for his return. she had thrown herself into the role as prime minister instead, facing Cullen’s lackeys again and again rather than relent and release his men. it was worth it though, now especially when the possibility of his demise was just around the corner. and it had kept her mind and body busy while her heart mourned.

there is something different about Kune now, Božena knows. she had changed too, of course. the kladruby mare’s body is harder and leaner than it ever had been, and she is just as determined as she ever had been… but there is softness there too, an understanding that perhaps hadn’t been. her time with the lagoon bratty had changed her as much as she had hoped to change their hearts. she learned to be something stronger, to stick to her convictions even when it seemed too hard. she had learned to live without him, even if it left her yearning. but Kune’s transformation was different.

there had been a strength to him that she had never noticed before…. a steely resolve glinting in his eye as if he could be a stranger… the passive stallion she had known, the one who would give her only so much as she asked, who would follow her and tend her as he would any ward but never breathe a word of his own desires and plans, was vanquished. as she took him in, when kuraz had brought him back to her doorstep, there was a different man before her. one who looked upon her unabashedly, with a warmth in his eyes that sent a shiver up her spine just to think of it now.

it leaves the dark mare reeling, as if the world stood tilted on its side and she was caught waiting for it to crash back down. the feeling of flooding relief that he would stay was instantaneous, as if a balm had been smoothed over a wound she had half-heartedly sewn back together. perhaps she could begin to heal now, or perhaps she would be broken again. either way, Božena did not want him to go.

she forces herself from he and kuraz still, resolving to make her daily patrols as she always had. it did her mind some good to take those short breaks, to have time to herself to contemplate his return and the joy it brought both her and her adopted child… she would spiral up the craggy trails of the peak, gaining the best vantage point to watch for intruders in the lower meadows, and then wind back down again, always finding herself more hurried than usual. there was a flutter in her heart, nervousness despite the fact that he said he would stay, and always relief when she found him standing there, watching her descend.

Božena approaches him one evening, when she is returned from her afternoon round and kuraz has wandered off, finally comfortable enough with their reunion to do so. the sun hangs low in the sky and the mountainside is bathed in yellow light, silhouetting her lanky frame. there is a formality between them now that she cannot seem to let slip away, and she hides behind it a little, offering her inky velvet muzzle to exchange breaths as she pulls up to stand beside him. her gaze is drawn to him, the endless dark of his eyes and the handsome arch of his neck, but she forces it away demurely, to admire the meadows below. ”it will never be… as it was in the vlast, but i do love it here. “ she has built a life here, one that is worlds apart than the one that had been pre-ordained for her a lifetime ago, and it is more than she could have dreamed of… but without him, it would never be quite enough.