Posted on January 7, 2020 at 10:36:11 PM by ylva
Ylva awakes with a start, her heart pounding in her chest, with the sensation that she had heard something. Her eyes dart across the dusky landscape to find the other members of the herd. Some are still sleeping, but several others have stirred, like herself, and Liland is gone altogether, as are Sabela and Havelle. Dread prickles down her spine. She knows instantly that something is terribly wrong.
First she finds her eldest children and wakes them. “Stay here, and be watchful,” she tells the twins, then looks to Torsten, who is still sleeping peacefully. In that moment he looks so young and innocent that she wants nothing more than to stay with them all, clutching them to her breast and waiting fearfully for Liland to return and say that everything is okay. But she is a queen now. To do nothing in a situation like this would, in her mind, make her undeserving of the position. Ylva veers away from the herd and strolls in a wide circle around them. She peers through the half-light, testing the air with her nostrils and looking for any sign of what is amiss. For a while she cannot detect anything until, as the hint of daybreak graces the gloomy horizon, she sees a silhouette emerge from the trees at a harried pace. Ylva’s heart leaps into her throat. It is Havelle. And as the filly reaches the herd, Ylva catches a coppery waft of blood, afterbirth, and something else. She watches, frozen, as Havelle approaches first Rayna, then Talien, and begins to lead them back the way she had come. It takes some moments of mental self-coaxing, but finally Ylva follows them, and it seems Wren has the same idea too - Ylva spots her from a distance, heading in the same direction. The short journey into the forest is a blur of adrenaline, and before she can fully grasp what is happening, Ylva finds herself at a terrible scene. It’s the blood that hits her first - the strong, bitter scent is thick in her nostrils, and everywhere the snow is stained with red, which looks almost black in the dim light. Ylva is faintly aware of horses all around her, horses grieving and crying and comforting each other, but she cannot look at any of them. She cannot look at anything but Sabela’s body, strewn so helplessly on the ground as if she had simply decided to take a nap in the snow. Ylva has only seen a dead body twice before: once in her youth - which she had been strangely unaffected by - and a second time when she had found the twins, freshly orphaned. But now… perhaps it is the sight of the helpless newborn foal trembling in the snow, so small and unaware of the situation it has been born into and such a reminder of the situation in which she had found her own children, but Ylva feels as though something has reached into her chest and twisted. Her eyes fill with tears, and she is finally forced to look away. Rayna’s screaming brings her back to earth, and Ylva watches with horror and dismay as the filly tries to wake her mother with brute force. Ylva feels she should do something, but not even Liland - Rayna’s own father - has managed to snap the girl out of it. What chance does Ylva have? Yet something comes over her then, and Ylva finds herself walking toward Rayna and Sabela half in a daze. She says nothing - for she knows no words will do - and instead lowers herself to the ground, where Rayna lays back-to-back with Sabela. Folding her legs neatly beneath her, Ylva lets the weight of her muzzle press against the girls’s cheek, and closes her eyes. As soft and quiet as a whisper, she begins to hum. 4; norwegian fjord; red dun pangare; 14hh mother of harley quinn, joker, & torsten  |
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- Beyond the shadows of tomorrow - By Talien January 15, 2020 at 04:32:46 PM
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