After parting ways with the red skjaldmær, Falda’s intent was to travel north to Tinuvel’s Bay. For the years she’d spent away, she had dreamed of nothing else but returning to its pebbled shore and finding Bacardi there. She was heartsick for her father, heartsick for home. But some inner prompting led the small mare south instead, browsing on twig-tips and scraping bark with her blunt teeth. As a creature bred to survive arctic tundras and periglacial steppes, this habit was as involuntary as the seasonal thickening of her chocolate-colored coat. And as necessary. Years of hardship had reinforced the lesson that even an unpalatable meal was better than none at all. Such fare could keep her going until the first shoots of grass returned with spring.
Keep going. Endure. That was the law she abided above all others — and the one that served her well when the storm fell howling upon the Crossing.
Head down and shoulders sloped forward, Falda pressed doggedly on through the driving snow. Each step seemed to take thrice the effort, as if she were pushing against the solid wall of a foe’s body. Only this foe was cold air instead of warm flesh, screaming wind instead of harsh bellows and grunts. Only this foe was tireless, clashing with the dark bay again and again until she was left gasping for breath. Turning the side of her face briefly to the storm, the Yakutian mare filled her lungs — and then froze, frost-tipped lashes blinking slowly, stupidly. What was that? She’d glimpsed something amidst the whirling skeins of snow. A flash of red in a world that was otherwise white, like the brief flare of an ember amidst cold ash.
“Mother?” Jealous and vindictive, the wind tore the call from Falda’s lips and sent it spinning back the way she had come. But hope burned bright in her chest, and the young woman turned her small body slowly, ponderously. Bracing herself against the winds that now buffeted the full length of her body, she crept forward again, squinting through thick snow and the heavy mist of her own breath. Here, it’d been right around here. “Mother?” She cried out again, her voice tremulous and thin. Somewhere to her left a branch broke beneath the snow, punctuating the wind’s dirge with a resounding crack.
“Valka!” Fear rose in her throat, a bitter-tasting lump that no amount of swallowing could clear. Lunging forward — floundering as her limbs sunk deep into a drift of snow — Falda collided abruptly with something warm and alive. Uttering a little cry of shock, the shaggy mare jerked back and glimpsed red again. Not the same shade as her dam’s coat, precisely, but it was still familiar. It was still a comfort in this white, alien world. “Hello?” There was little chance her companion would hear her. Even at her best, Falda could not match the volume of the storm — her voice was naturally soft, with a note as gentle as her nature.
But the stranger would feel her furry body crowd close to his. He would feel every tremble that shivered down her spine, every breath that filled her lungs. And together — bound by something as simple and primal as the need to survive —
Together, they would weather the storm.