It doesn’t happen all at once, but one morning Rhadra awakes and summer is slipping out the door, leaving frost and chilly dawns in its wake. She hasn’t been on Someplace very long at all, she feels, but she did arrive on the tail end of the hottest time of year and now the world turns toward cold. It stumps her for a moment. Rhaadra left the herd on the mainland in search of adventure and something a little more exciting than what she was used to, and thus far she hasn’t been disappointed. But...
But she is almost painfully aware of her solitude here. For all those she has met, Rhadra has not retained anyone’s company. It would be nice to shoulder in among some fellows before winter sets its teeth in the wind. Her mind flits easily to Kestral, a familiar heat stirring in her belly. There is one reason she has not immediately returned to the Peak: the thought of trying, yet again, to be a mother, fills her with a cavernous despair. She’s not ready to learn a fourth time that it is not to be. The appeal of a physical relationship, however, is a strong pull for her. Especially having been on her own for the better part of the year, when before she had been surrounded not only by a full herd but had the consistent, if distracted, company of her sister.
Rhadra stands in an open meadow as she contemplates her options, chin tucked pensively toward her chest. Her belly is full and her head clear, and in the distance is that mysterious, monotonous roar providing an undercurrent to her thoughts. Should she range further in this land and see what else it has to offer? Or seek to ease the pain in her heart with company she knows she would be delighted to keep through the cold months? It would not be so great a risk to choose the latter. Come springtime she could simply leave rather than watch other mares become mothers. Had she not done the same thing to wind up here? |