Falls

Kendry bounds through the snow like a colt, racing this way and that and kicking up drifts under the bright afternoon sun. He has no concerns today. His heart is light and the sky above is a vivid blue, the snowy fields of the Falls sprawling all around him with potential, potential. The memory of his conversation with Banks makes him grin, and he bucks, kicking out with all his strength just to feel that satisfying stretch as his muscles flex.

The perlino rights himself with an exuberant shake of his had and trots a little further before he slows to identify his surroundings. His barrel heaves as he catches his breath and he snorts, then exhales a long plume. Kendry loves winter. There isn’t enough snow beneath the dense canopy of the Thicket and he is uncomfortable traversing the whole of Luthien. He has not been to his birth home since he and Marlena left it once he’d reached adulthood. It seems strange to him to even be on Luthien— and so he finds himself more often than not on the Crossing, a place more familiar to him than anywhere else.

He rolls his shoulders in a private shrug as he encourages his introspection to slide off his back. He has not felt so unencumbered in a long time, and he intends to enjoy the feeling for as long as it lasts. So the great stallion walks, kicking through the snow now and again as his mood catches him up in bursts of merriment, until finally his wandering eyes fall upon a heavily spotted horse lingering at the edge of a copse of trees. He’s tall enough to look Kendry in the eye and sporting some feathers of his own around his hooves and, intrigued, the pale draft hails him with a neigh as he swings his body ‘round to approach. Normally he’d park himself nearby the stranger and settle in to chat, but his energy today is abundant and he wants to share. What better opportunity for a light spar than this?

“Heyla,” Kendry scores the snow before them with one wide hoof, his grin wide and easy, gregarious. The only tension in his muscles is the intermittent ripple of a young man flexing and ready to roughhouse. “Up for a scuffle?”