The wind was bitter and cold as it whipped through the rolling terrain of the meadow, and the steely-colored mare braced against it. She shut her bright blue eyes and physically shuttered as its brisk temperatures made the grey strands of her mane dance along her topline. But it came just as quickly as it went, and Vita Nova breathed a great sigh to see it go. Creamy plumes rose from her whiskered nostrils as she did so, and her wide eyes surveyed the mostly unremarkable landscape now. She loathed the cold weather, despite her two stints in herds on Tinuvel. Even the most wretchedly cold days on the Crossing Isle paled in comparison to those on the nearby arctic island, but still, Nova dreamed for a break in the weather, for when the sun would shine again, and the leaves would return to the trees in their usual green and lush fashion.
In the distance, Vita Nova's loudly colored daughter, Nyah, investigated snow pile after snow pile, her chimera legs laced with dried (and still damp) mud up to her knees. Lately the mother and daughter pair had found refuge in the Meadow and the Falls more often than at the Peak, which was technically their temporary 'home' until the weather turned and they could get the hell off this island. The Crossing Isle had become a point of banality in Nova's life -- a place where she had been stranded during various stagnant chapters. As such, it felt a bit like purgatory, a place where she was stuck when she was lost or didn't have a more fitting home to return to. Now that Oswin had been taken hostage by the stallions in the Lagoon, her purpose in in the Peak seemed bleak. She felt more comfortable here by herself, with the occasional small talk from a stranger, rather than trying to hold her own among the mares who lived on the mountain top.
Still, each day she dreamed of running into someone she cared about. Evren. Shamwari. Paradiso. Even Evaline. Orkaan. Sometimes Nephilim. Just somebody she knew. Someone who would envelope her in familiar comfort and tell her everything was going to be OK. That she and her daughter were fine and that they had someplace better they could return home to. But she was old enough to know how fleeting and how silly such a hopeless wish really was.
The snow did not fully blanket the meadow, well, at least not the area in which Nova and Nyah traversed across today. It sat in mismatched piles, which Nyah would canter to and leap into the melting, crushing wet mess and then to another. "Not too far." Nova called after her as she galloped in circles around her. The grey mare pawed feverishly at the moist and sometimes hard earth, searching for remnants of green or yellow blades, but her attempts were futile. She breathed another bored sigh when a short, feathered mare came into view in the distance.
Even Nyah stopped dead in her tracks, if only for a second, to admire the strange mare. Despite having spent time with the stout draft breeds in the Peak, the young filly had never seen a short but thick one, like this. She cocked her head curiously to one side and stared for several seconds before losing interest and tearing away to wallop herself into another pile of snow. Nova, having watched the child's display rolled her eyes hopelessly and offered the mare an apologetic nicker for her filly's lack of tact. "Sorry about that." She said casually, while flicking her tail lazily over her haunches. "I don't think she's ever seen a Gypsy breed before."
4 | Mare | Evaline x Valentine | Smoky Back Splash | 15 hh | © Vinyl |
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