As Vita Nova gazed over the peaks in the distance, the tips of their rocky ledges shielded by low hanging, thick clouds, she'd forgotten why she came back to the islands at all. Night after night, while on the lamb with Evaline, Nova dreamed of returning to the Prairie and seeing her father. It was the only thing that got her through her mother's coldness and relentless search for a brother she'd never met. The coo became so ridiculous, and her mother so intense about it, that Nova worried the palomino mare had finally lost it. That she was delusional, searching for something that never existed. It put the filly in an awkward, grief-stricken state. Did her mother make up having another child? Was she not good enough to fill her heart? Nova never dare ask her mother about it out loud, for fear of irrational punishment. Her mother was on edge, always. She was miserable and in her own grief, was attacking the only being out there that had unwillingly left to stand at her side.
She always assumed Valentine would welcome her home with warmth and hearth. But the closer she got to Luthien, the more she doubted it. Evaline had fled, taking her with her. It had been months, by Nova's count, since she returned. The herd would have moved on. She wondered, even, if they still lived in the Prairie.
It was a welcome reprieve, not to worry about her messy family dynamics. Being on her own, be it only a short amount of time, had opened Nova's eyes to an entirely new way to live. The world was so vast, with so many marvelous things to see and explore. So many others to meet and get to know. This new found independence felt fantastic. But now that she was here with Nephilim, she was so willing to give it up just in return for his affection.
It's a funny thing, how the heart works. Love and lust and attraction is so fickle. It can be so cruel, but Nova doesn't know it yet. All the sooty mare knows is that she adores the way she feels when Nephilim looks at her. She knows it feels like her whole being will explode when he touches her. Chasing him across his homeland, its peaks and temperatures and terrain so new and foreign to her, was strange and addicting and she never wanted this day to end. She feared saying those words out loud, that somehow, that would be what made all of this disappear.
She pushed the thoughts from her mind as she followed him back down the path they came, taking far more time to plant her feet with every stride than she did on the way up. She was bright and intrigued by every new inch of the Bay Nephilim showed her along the way. Even the wolf pups, whose chorus caused her to look up toward the mountains above, as their distant howls bounced from rocky peak to peak. "They deserve their own place in this world, too." She said, after a long pause, thinking of the furry canine family. She'd only seen a wolf but once. It had eyed her and her mother in the woods once, and Evaline was quick to make a scene -- snorting and rearing and charging -- until it headed the other way.
The humidity hovering over the hot springs hit her like a crashing wave atop her head. She nickered softly as she extended her nose over the water's edge, ashen lobes flicking forward and back as she listened to the bubbling surge underneath her. She hesitated to move into the waters, for the fear of the chill that might arise when she emerged. Her excitement kept the worst of the chill from her bones, but the mare was never one who did best in frigid temperatures. In her mind, she irrationally rectified this by thinking hoping, wishing Nephilim would keep her warm here. So when he spoke again, the two of them alone at the edge of the springs, her heart melted all over again.
"Me too, Nephilim." She said softly, taking a step forward to extend her muzzle to his own. "You know, I'd really love it if I could stay here with you."
3 | Mare | Evaline x Valentine | Smoky Back Splash | 15 hh | © Vinyl |
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