Ylva hears the voice, but it is far away, with the weight of a feather on her consciousness. Wrapped in the woolen blanket of her grief, she continues to weep and shiver violently, though her wails are becoming quieter and her tears begin to slow. She is badly dehydrated now; she can feel it, rolling like rocks in her head and coating her tongue like a thick fungus. The last time she had a drink was over a day ago. Soon she will have no tears left to give.
It is the warmth and pressure of another body against hers that finally brings her to. Sucking in shallow, shuddering breaths and blinking her bleary eyes, Ylva casts a glance over the brown and white body beside her and nearly jerks away until she hears that the stranger is crying too. For several long moments she watches them, her grief all but forgotten in her confusion. She has never found herself in a situation like this before, and so at first so she does nothing, until her sympathetic nature overcomes her shyness and she gently lays her neck across the other horse, to comfort them until they have calmed down.
In turn, the warmth of the stranger’s body comforts her, and soon her shivers have ebbed away, leaving behind a bone-deep exhaustion that weighs down her eyelids. Though it cannot be much later than mid-to-late afternoon, the winter sun is already well below the horizon, and stars have begun to sprinkle across the twilight sky. Ylva breathes deeply, and sends them a silent prayer. Whatever the universe has done to bring her and this stranger together in their woes, she trusts it is for a reason.
2; norwegian fjord; red dun pangare; 14hh
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