Zevulun fell into easy step with his pretty, hardy new companion. Initially he allowed her to pick their path through the forest, ears flicking to catch her words as they floated back to him. Zevulun could appreciate curiosity in another soul as he was a curious creature himself, already pledging he’d visit every island before next summer. The moment Mariael offered him the green light to travel, Zevulun would swim for Crossing Isle, all too excited to meet other horses from both the mainlands and the other islands. Still, he couldn’t help but selfishly hope Kikka’s description of Tinuvel later on to her brother would interest Trell – as she’d said his name was – because then Zevulun would get to see Kikka again if her brother wanted to return.
The idea perked him up and Zevulun blinked as her questions began. “The summer. The sun doesn’t set in the summer. We try to keep to a schedule, sometimes in the beginning if it’s too hard to sleep in the broad daylight, we’ll go into a dark cavern where the light’s shut out. But eventually you get used to it.” Zevulun paused briefly before he continued to explain. “Autumn, the sun will set and rise again, but the hours will change in how long the sun is up, gradually becoming less and less until it doesn’t rise at all. In winter, the sun never rises and our coldest months are also our darkest, except for the nights where the moon is full. You’ll never see a sight so beautiful as a full moon over freshly fallen snow.” He smiled, remembering the first time he was old enough to appreciate it.
Zevulun picked up his pace as she suggested he lead with an apologetic smile, knowing he should have thought of that from the beginning. His ears flicked as she asked about his family. “Well, it’s just myself and my two older sisters, Mariael and Maziel. Mariael is Queen of the Bay. Our father gave her the title two years ago.” This was right before Zevulun had been born, so he’d always lived where his sister was queen. “Our father,” he hesitated briefly, “he’s no longer here.” Zevulun was still confused on which side of the argument he stood on between his sisters. Rather than his opinion, he figured Kikka would appreciate the truth. “He attempted to defend us from a wolf attack when I was young and disappeared into a blizzard. We haven’t found him sense.”
He glanced at her curiously. “Is it just you and your brother too?”
Zevulun, realizing they could see the rising of the hills which framed the Bay through the trees, gestured with his muzzle. “Up that way is a network of caves which provide safety through the winter. There’s a long hike through the mountains on a rocky trail that’ll eventually take you to hot springs – the water there is always warm. Some of it runs through the mountain, so the caves near it stay warm, too. That’s where we normally try to spend the worst of the winter.” He glanced in the opposite direction. “That direction there’s a few more caverns, but there’s also a path that goes up one of the peaks and down to a separate beach you can’t get to by swimming, the water’s too rocky.”
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