Joining

To say that Sleia was lost would be inaccurate - one does not simply lose one's way onto an island - but there she was all the same without the foggiest idea where she'd landed, her wanderlust soothed into silence by the satisfaction of a challenge overcome. For the second time in her life, the ruddy mare found herself asking, what next?

The surrounding landscape offered no answer. To the north, the snow-capped spine of a distant mountain range clawed into the clear winter sky. To the south, the crust of another island darkened the horizon above the restless sea. And before her, peppered with the signs of lives crossing and converging, a sea of dry grass bowed and swayed in the chill wind as though rustling with courtly gossip.

None of it of consequence, and none of it for her.

Sleia preferred to make her impressions as part of the environment rather than distinct from it, to be happened upon and not confronted. She earned kinder introductions that way. And why not? There was certainly enough wonder in the world to share and share alike, and the doors flung wide to admit such improvisational enthusiasm always opened on more and more worthwhile adventures. Perhaps tomorrow she would climb a mountain; perhaps the day after, she would fly.

Today, she was but a copper boat adrift in the meadow, content to mind her steps with the quiet confidence of a fisherman on a lake.