The last of my cities have burned

The shape of a mare, pale cream and gold, materializes out of the failing sunlight. Her legs disturb a thin blanket of fog that has settled over the cooling mountain surface as the temperature drops. Temple watches her approach. The russet mare’s head hangs low, but she lifts it as the pale Peak mare gets close, her ears cupped forward with attention.

Have you come to seek shelter in the Peak?

Shelter is not the word Temple might have chosen. There was no storm for her to weather, no beast chasing her through the lush lowlands. No men snapping at her heels for attention. The dappled mare flicks her ears back in thought, then forward again as she considers the question.

“No,” she answers honestly. The word is not friendly, but it is not unnecessarily blunt. “I run from nothing.” It is not a brag, but a statement of fact; there is nothing from which to run, or stand her ground.

Her eyes flick over the pale mare, and then past, seeking out vague details of the mountain top through the gloom. There is not much to see. “What is this place?” she asks, curiosity giving a glimmer of expression to her otherwise flat, gravelly voice. A shiver runs through her briefly as a breeze rushes up the path she had taken to get here, lifting the straw-colored ends of her mane and tail.

TEMPLE