The glimmer of gold on the side of the Ridge doesn’t register to Faolain as much of anything at first. She only sees it for a second before it disappears into the shadows of the jungle, and the faintest flicker of a memory is not enough for the black mare to go digging for her old life. She watches from one of the higher ledges on the Ridge’s peak, too far away to make out much of anything other than mottled sunlight on the coat of the stranger. She wonders if the fur is really that color, or if it is actually just the sunlight illuminating them before they disappear into the green.

Almost as soon as they are out of sight, Faolain forgets about them. She doesn’t think much about anything beyond the Ridge’s borders these days. Her fall from the height of the Ridge’s peak had cleaved her, leaving cavernous gaps between the pieces of her person, and the jungle had grown into these spaces. Faolain was tethered to this place to such a degree that the world outside of it hardly existed to her. This stranger is no different, and although Faolain does not recognize them as belonging here, there is no alternative – no ‘elsewhere’ to which one might belong if not the Ridge.

As the sun climbs higher into the sky, Faolain retreats to the shade. Weaver, who had been napping, becomes alert now in the cool air beneath the trees, no longer sedated by the sunlight. The spotted filly dashes off, and Faolain lets her go, content in the knowledge that nothing in her world is very dangerous at all. She is present enough to turn her single good ear in the filly’s direction, to get a sense of where to return and search when it is time to find her daughter again later. Then she wanders off, following the familiar veins of the territory with no destination in mind.

As she picks her way carefully down a trail that switches through a particularly steep portion of the territory, she hears footsteps ahead. Instinct causes her to pause, but Faolain isn’t afraid, or even particularly suspicious at the sound of the unfamiliar gait. She distantly remembers the golden shape on the beach, and encounters an anchor of time that is rattling to her in her usual state of drifting. Faolain does not often create new memories since her fall; it often takes days of routine for something to settle and for her to remember it, and an unusual event must break that routine in a big way for her to commit it. She wonders why this tiny thing – this little golden shape on the beach – would stick, of all things.

As though conjured, Faolain sees the flash of gold through the trees now. She cocks her head to the side as the stranger emerges, indeed the same one from the beach she had seen earlier in the day. It’s a mare, sunshine-colored after all. Spotted, and –

something

Faolain tilts her head, shifting to the side of the path, trying in vain to allow enough room for the beautiful bright mare to pass her on the impossibly narrow switchback. It’s no use; one of them will have to turn back the way they had come for the other to progress. Faolain begins to do so, and finds it difficult to look away from the sunlight mare. She’s too lovely, and –

something

Something about her makes Faolain feel giddy and foolish. “Sorry,” she says sheepishly, offering an apologetic smile. “It’s too narrow for the both of us. I’ll let you come up first.”

She begins the climb back up the slope, keeping the golden mare in the edge of her vision. There is a strange sort of clarity about her, something Faolain can’t make sense of. She hadn’t realized her world was cloudy at all, but when she looks away from the spotted mare, everything seems out of focus and hazy. She craves that clarity, and –

something?

She keeps glancing back.

mare | akhal-teke mutt | black | 14hh | ridge