He'd found her, those many months ago, exploring the many pools exposed at the base of the peak at low tide. Reef could hardly resist his tryst: he'd come to her, surrounded by sand and shale and lullabied by the susurrus of the surf. She's not been back since (for she'd recognized the signs early, earlier than her last, and had to scramble to touch foot on one last island before necessity could anchor her) but it seems right, now, to return to the place that is theirs.
Reef steps out of the woods and onto the sun-warmed beach with a quickening of her heart as her eyes pan the intimate setting. At her side trots a pale colt, his pelt gold as honey, his new-child smell as sweet. Her eyes alight on Zevulun almost immediately, posed as he is like Poseidon. He is stunning against a backdrop of blue snugged tight against cerulean, the distant horizon unbroken save for the scattering of broken rock being smoothed patiently by the sea, his powerful body limned by the fading afternoon light. The sun catches in every drop of water on his coat and he glistens, nay, seems to glow. The beat in her chest crescendoes and, with her small head tucked, Reef lifts into a prance, all but dancing her way to the white stallion's side. The buckskin boy veers immediately toward the tideline and its treasures.
"Hello," she murmurs, tucking up to Zevulun like a limpet and reaching to drag her nose through appreciatively his mane. Salt and stallion, that heady musk of Zevulun mixed with the sharp iodine of the waves. It's strange to feel the dry rasp of her coat against his wet body and she shuffles closer (if that were even possible) like she might soak up whatever runoff still trickles down his body. Reef has been a long time up on that mountain, almost three months away from her beloved shoreline, receiving only the faintest whiff of the sea with each teasing gust from the wind.
The colt has heard of this place, has seen it from the heights of his home, but this is his first real experience of it, and as his dark legs splash into the shallows Reef's head snaps up, her attention focused unerringly on their son. "Oy! Mind the undertow— remember? The ocean doesn't let go when it pulls, Thatch. It's not a lake. It's a whole different beast." Her tone is firm, and he acknowledges her with a flick of his ear, glancing over only briefly at the adults. While he is curious about the stallion, he has met other horses before. Of far more pressing interest is this new entity licking at his toes, and he concedes to his dam by withdrawing to a depth only hock-height before continuing his investigations.
They make an odd family: a father pale as snow at sunrise and a dam dark as a clouded autumn sky producing a boy who, to all appearances, is a solid buckskin. Some might think the colt is of no relation to either parent. But there is Reef in his bearing and natural curiosity, and when he glances over at his parents it is with Zevulun's striking blue eyes. |