I love you more in my head
but I’ll love you better when I’m dead
⬡ ⬡ ⬡
Naydra’s knees ache as she picks her way down the gentlest of Peak slopes toward the Commons. Her belly is swollen to bursting, and her usually manicured mane and coat are just slightly disheveled. This is mostly due to her pregnancy, but the move from her tangled forest home up into the mountains has not helped either. The wind never ceases whipping her white-gold locks every which way, and to some extent she has given up on constantly fixing it. If she must look like a wild woman in order to live high above everyone else, so be it.
Before today, Naydra has not found any reason to leave the Peak since climbing up it the first time. Despite the pestering wind and treacherous footing, the silver-black mare feels strangely suited to the unfamiliar heights. In the seasons since arriving, her hooves have hardened, and her body has grown toned and taught with the beginnings of the muscles required for daily movement through the stones. She has never thought of herself as a warrior, and isn’t likely to start now, but she has begun to entertain the idea of her own strength.
Even with all of the changes, Naydra’s body still protests as she descends down the steep path. She can’t tell if she is imagining her knees creaking and popping with every step, or if it’s just the sound of stones clacking against each other as she kicks or steps on them, or if her legs truly are audibly outraged. She is just so heavy.
The ground turning to soft earth comes as a relief, as does the leveling out of her path. Naydra feels a hundred pounds lighter walking straight instead of down, across soft soil and grass. Winter lingers in the highest parts of the Peak, but the Common has already leapt into spring. Naydra’s dark muzzle lifts, scenting the air for strangers, but all she can pick up is the damp earthen smell of an early spring morning.
And she hears water.
Suddenly, she is desperately thirsty, and she nearly picks up an ungraceful trot in her haste to reach the stream. She plunges her lips into the brisk water, drinking greedily, barely noticing the other mare approaching on the opposite side.
She is a little further down the stream from Naydra, and as her thirst subsides, the Peak mare turns her attention. The lack of a territory to truly call her own has not dampened the dragon-like greed within her, and something about the tarnished silver-gold dapples on this mare awaken it fiercely. Much like her sudden insatiable thirst, Naydra is struck by the need to possess.
Not quite so hastily as she had approached the stream, Naydra moves along the bank toward the dappled mare. She is just as pregnant as Naydra is, it seems, so the darker woman slows with caution, unwilling to send the other running.
She stops with the dappled mare straight across the stream from her, and gives a friendly nicker across the water. “Good morning,” she says, just loud enough to be heard over the cheerful bubbling of the water. There seems to be no one else in the Common at this time of the morning, so Naydra sees no reason to shout. Aside from the early spring birds, it is quiet.
Naydra
mare. 16hh. silver black. rougaru x visurix.
