The sun was hanging in the sky the same way it had for days now. The three siblings grazed on fresh shoots of snow-melt fed grass and tundra brush, fattening themselves up in preparation for the dark winters where their only reprieve were the hot springs and the caverns which ran adjacent to them. Two of the three were on alert – Zevulun, the young cream and white colt-stallion, and Mariael, the older, but still young and hardened mare. From time to time they lifted their heads, ears twitching as they caught distant sounds.
The world, the islands, had been plunged into a slumber and now it seemed they’d taken a collective breath and awoken to a new dawn. Life had returned. The Bay was secured by their bloodline, by a queen whose head was somewhat more level than it had been two years prior.
Mariael turned her eyes to her brother as he looked off at the far distant beach. “Zevu?” She said, and immediately he blinked and turned his attention toward her. Mariael looked at her brother for a moment, not for the first time marveling at how his youthful nature was beginning to give way to an adult. She and Maziel had watched him grow from wobbly-legged, uncertain little thing to the playful, sometimes eyeroll worthy individual he was now. At times she nearly felt like she had raised him, given his mother’s absence in his youthful life followed shortly by their father’s.
“You’re free to go to Crossing Isle if you want.” She knew what it would mean to him, and she only smiled at the way he brightened and swelled with obvious excitement.
“Really?!”
Maziel had lifted her head and was smiling too.
Mariael nodded and glanced toward the beach. “We need to make this a home. A place for families to feel the same strength we do. We can’t do that tucked away in the remote areas anymore. The islands are alive again and we should join the living.” She looked back at him and smiled. Zevu had been dying to see the islands for as long as he’d been old enough to understand there were others out there.
“Alright!” Zevu exclaimed and jerked his head upright, rocking his weight into a playful, small rear (barely one, really, as his hooves only came a few inches away from the ground).
“We should all go!” He said, his blue eyes alight with glee as he looked back at his sisters.
“Someone has to stay here.” Mariael reminded him gently. “Someone should always be here at the Bay in case a stranger or an intruder comes.”
“Oh. Right.” Zevu huffed a small breath.
“I’ll go with you, Zevu.” His soft-spoken, gentle, blind sister pointed her ears toward him. Maziel did not like to swim alone since the ocean had taken her away years ago, distorting and confusing her, and nearly killing her as she tried to fight its turbulent current. But her spirit was restless too, and she loved to visit the other islands and meet other strangers.
“Is that okay, Mariael?” Zevu asked, looking from Maziel to Mariael.
Mariael felt a soft pang of worry, looking at the two who she loved most in this world. She would die for her sister and brother. They were a piece of her heart. Mariael would not worry about what could happen while they were gone. Instead, she sighed and nodded. “Don’t be gone for more than two days.”
“We won’t!” Zevu promised with a wide, happy grin, bouncing forward with a lofty trot and extending his neck to bump his muzzle against his sister’s neck with affection. Mariael returned the touch and offered one to Maziel, too.
And though her heart squeezed with worry, she stood at the crest of the beach and watched them swim into the surf, Zevu sticking expertly close to Maziel so she wouldn’t be lost as they swam. Only once their bodies were distant dots in the dark sea did she sigh and turnabout, looking at her sun-soaked queendom and realizing this was the first time in years she’d been alone.
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