Mercury felt as though she were sinking back into some semblance of her old life in the Bay. As a child here, she had lurked in the forest and avoided the heat of the herd. She had enjoyed the fearful shivers sent through her spine by the songs of the wolves, found that nervous energy they gave her to be terribly exciting and fun.

The songs comforted her now, because they reminded her of her childhood.

Mercury had steadily moved further from the Bay herd since losing Caliber, avoiding the mares and even Soljor and pretending she had never left her birth home in the first place. She began to feel like a piece of the land, fitting in with those thick, muffling cascades of snow like a blizzard without wind. A tiny Tinuvel flurry that never thawed, even when spring seeped in and the quiet blizzards hibernated.

Despite her strange love of the wolves, Mercury was not stupid and never strayed near them. They did not love her the same way. Their love was hungry, cold, sharp, and her awareness of that love was like keeping ice in your mouth for long enough that your lips and tongue retain the taste of the cold long after the ice itself is gone. It made her shiver. It kept her sober. She did not feel numb or heavy with sadness when she heard their singing. She felt awake, not needing to think so much with her head as with her instincts.

But she knew it wasn’t like that for the others. She could feel the way they tensed at the presence of the wolves, and tensed at the presence of this new, unknown predator. The wolves tensed at the other predator, as well; Mercury was doubly unsettled by its presence, if even the wolves seemed to fear it. The white mare willed the herd to keep to their valley, to stick together and not let their children wander, and for the most part they seemed to obey their own instincts and perhaps Mercury’s as well. It was rare for someone to go off on their own, so Mercury was startled to hear the footfalls and catch the scent of a heavily pregnant mare.

She moved quickly toward the sounds and recognized the scent as Fly’s. She wanted to drive the bay mare back to the herd where she would be safe, but as soon as she skidded to a halt in the thawing earth before the kneebound woman, she knew it was too late.

Mercury snorted angrily and turned to the parts of the forest Fly couldn’t see where she lay. Predators were silent, and with the scent of blood and birth saturating the air around them, sight was their only reliable sense.

Fly’s labor did not seem to last long, but the two lingered for longer than Mercury would have liked. The scent of blood was putting them all in danger, and the white mare paced in an agitated but quiet line between the Fly and the deeper parts of the forest. Her ears were flat and her head snaked low, and she slinked through the undergrowth like a predator herself. She was angry with Fly for bringing her daughter out here. She was angry with herself for drifting so close to the wolves; the scent of a lone horse was surely tantalizing (she didn’t think she had gotten close enough to smell, but the winds could betray her easily) and they might have moved closer. She doubted it, but it was a possibility, and now if Fly and her foal were caught, much of it would have been Mercury’s fault.

But no one got caught. She didn’t even hear the wolves as Fly began to move back to the herd with her newborn, didn’t even smell the new lone predator. Mercury watched them go with her back to the forest, not wishing to escort them the entire way; she felt unwelcome in that little valley. For a while after the pair arrived in their midst she watched them, imagining their body heat and feeling it contrast with the chilly spring breeze that whispered along her flanks.

OOC: sorry, this is pretty weird ._. lol. I figured I’d toss her in for at least one post, since she needs to be a little more active, and if no one drags her into the herd then she’ll disappear again :3

You love me, and I froze in time
Hungry for that flesh of mine
But I can't compete with the she-wolf
who has brought me to knees
What do you see in those yellow eyes?