When her milk began to flow, it opened a whole new world for Ylva and the twins. When she had happened upon them abandoned in the meadow, the body of their dead dam festering close by, she had never once considered that they would become her adopted children; her only concern was getting them to a safe place and finding them a surrogate mother as quickly as possible. She was still so early in her pregnancy, and she had known instinctively that she would have no milk for them.
Tears of relief had flowed as the twins suckled from her, and she slept fitfully that night, exhausted yet too watchful over the foals to allow herself any real rest. There was something else as well, nestled deep into her heart - a deluge of something heaving and surging, like an angry sea - something she could only describe as a deep sense of being overwhelmed. She had not asked for this--she had not asked to be a mother of not one, or two, or three; she had not asked to be some old stallion’s meek plaything, in a land barren and bleak and devoid of any kind of warmth. She had not asked to be thrust out of her homeland like a discarded tool.
But if Ylva was anything, she was not one to give up. She had made it this far, and she would keep going as long as there was strength in her legs and air in her lungs.
So it was that after a few days on the crossing, Ylva deemed the foals strong enough to attempt the swim back to the inlet. As much as she would have liked to wait longer, she knew it was only a matter of time before someone came looking for her anyway, and it would be too cold and treacherous to swim when the snows came. Her heart was in her throat the entire time, both out of fear for the twins and fear of what Warsaw would have to say when she returned, if he said anything to her at all.
But at last they arrived, sodden and shivering and exhausted onto the pebbly beach. Ylva shook the water from her coat, checked over the twins, and then allowed them to nurse to regain some strength. In the meantime she stood, her head high and alert and watchful for any approachers.
2; norwegian fjord; red dun pangare; 14hh
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