Winter is Braemar’s second least favorite season. In part, this is because it means the excitement of the autumn rut has passed, and most mares have been herded away to spend the coldest months under the watchful eye of whatever stallion had covered them the season before. Braemar’s first winter on the islands had been no exception. It had been a lonely few months in which Braemar had grown restless, bored, and frustrated, and had begun to think that his time on the islands was beginning to feel less like an exotic vacation and more like solitary confinement.
Now that winter has passed, the sharp edge of these feelings has dissolved, but they still linger, and not for the first time Braemar finds himself thinking of the young filly he had met the previous autumn. When they had last seen each other, Braemar had failed to scrounge up any kind of mischief to get the girl into, and had asked to see her again the following spring, in the hopes that the longer, warmer days would provide more such opportunities. Now he inwardly marvels at the fact that this young girl is becoming perhaps his first and only friend on the islands. It should feel strange and inappropriate, but it doesn’t. Besides, she should be nearly mature when they see each other next: all the more reason to drag her into trouble.
She finds him a little later in the season than he had anticipated. Braemar stands not far from the rumbling falls, rubbing his itchy molting coat against the bark of a tree and sending pale blossoms cascading all around him. His face immediately brightens with a smile when he sees her, but then he can see that something is wrong. Rayna informs him that her mother had passed away, and his pale face falls.
“Oh, lass…” he says sympathetically, but falls short of offering any more condolences. Mushy stuff has never been his forte. Instead, he leads her to the falls for a drink, but their seclusion is interrupted by the enthusiastic splashing of a colt about Rayna’s age. Braemar lifts his whiskered chin from the water and watches the lad with an expression of bemusement for a few moments. Then an idea jolts through his head like a bolt of lightning. He turns to Rayna, a mischievous smirk already twisting at his lips.
“Ye’ve not found a boyfriend yet, ‘ave ye? I know just the thing to take yer mind off things.” And then, before Rayna can stop him, Braemar is striding toward the water’s edge, his head high and pointed in the direction of the young colt. “Hey! Hey you! Come ‘ere a second!”
5; highland pony; dapple gray; 14.0hh |
