Meadow

The song was a familiar one- one that his mother had probably sang to him many times when he was a little less than a black and white weanling. He remembers well hugging close to her side, the pale of his skin contrasting to the speckled red of her flesh. They were a sight to behold, dark and light, both with a smattering of white among them.

The little lilt rolls off his tongue and resonates in his breast, and he almost manages to forget that he was navigating the snow with closed eyes, his head swinging left and right as he proudly displays his magnificence.

Of course, he was not alone.

“Afternoon.” The single word awakens him, his eyes opening, but the hum still hanging in his mouth. Valens’ head turns to one side, curious as to who disturbed him, still singing to himself as if he were trying to play his own distraction. When he sees her, he stops.

She was like fire come alive. The sun shone off her thin skin, glinting in his eyes and dragging him in like a magpie to jewels. “Wow.” She says breathlessly, picking up his heels and all but bouncing across the snow towards her, a genial smile across his pink lips and his dark tail flagging excitedly like a great black banner behind him. She is thinner than him, leaner- but the two of them, images of red and black and white, are stunning in their differences. “You are stunning!” He calls over the distance, suddenly away that his flesh wore clumps of thick hair, and she was still svelte and sporty.

Closer and closer he comes, leaning in and eyeing her carefully, a look of wonder reflecting in his bright blue eyes. “How do you do that?” His breath is hot and brushes against her shoulder, where he reaches out to get a better look at the delicate and bedazzling coat that she wears. “I mean, look at you! Have you seen what you look like?” His concern is only for thinking she did not know how beautiful she was, and he wanted to make sure that she knew.

He would also never say no so some kind words thrown in his direction.