Ylva stared at the steel-grey waves with trepidation. The way they lurched and hissed onto the shore made her gut clench with the memory of the last time she had been in them, for they had nearly claimed her life that day. In the months since she had arrived on Tinuvel, Ylva had avoided letting her hooves so much as touch the ocean. But now she had something else to live for.
The little life in her pushed her onward. But she did not turn west, the direction of her homeland. She turned south, to places unknown.
Ylva swam through the warming waters to the crossing isle with thankfully little issue. The mountainous landscape rose before her ominously, but Ylva skirted its edges, travelling along the beach for the better part of a day until she had left the mountains behind her. Now nothing but meadows and woodlands stood in her way, and they reminded her of the place in which she had been born and raised. The thought made her heart ache.
Where would she go from here? This was obviously a no-man's-land, in which only strangers roamed for short periods of time, and it was so quiet that Ylva almost felt compelled to hold her breath as she traipsed through the trees. If she wanted to find another herd, she would have to keep moving... and quickly, before Warsaw tracked her down.
Then a scent stopped her in her tracks, and Ylva stood testing the air for several long moments. Something smelled wrong, borderline putrid. Something smelled like blood and death. Her heart in her throat, Ylva peeked through the trees into the meadow beyond, where the tall yellow grasses swayed gently in the breeze. She could not immediately see anything amiss, but then a large shape half-hidden in the grass caught her eye. She crept out of her hiding place in the trees, head outstretched, ears pricked, nostrils flaring wide.
It was a body.
Ylva nearly backpedalled and ran; all her instincts screamed at her to leave this place. Yet something even more powerful compelled her to stay and investigate. Ylva crept even closer to the fallen mare, watching for signs of life. When none appeared, she touched her, and found her body cold. Her throat tight with horror, Ylva stared at the dead mare, wondering who she was and what had happened to her, and pondering how strange it was that she simply looked asleep. Ylva had never seen a dead body before, and she was transfixed.
Then a nearby sound nearly scared her out of her skin, and Ylva jerked her head up to meet the eyes of a pair of newborn foals, tucked away in the grasses a short distance away, their golden coats neatly blending in with their surroundings. Ylva's heart dropped, and she came to them with her lips parted in wonder. They were so tiny, so vulnerable. Ylva said a prayer under her breath and glanced all around her to be certain no one else was around, but they were utterly alone. It was just her, the foals, and their dead mother.
"You poor, poor things," she murmured, and gently prodded the foals with her nose, to be certain nothing was wrong with them. Other than their unusual eyes, she could see nothing immediately wrong with them. "What do I do? Oh God, what do I do?"
2; norwegian fjord; red dun pangare; 14hh
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