Meadow

Rivaini

Rivaini's solitude felt different after she parted ways with the spotted stallion. Bondurant's presence had been so immense, so overpowering that the empty space surrounding her felt amplified in his absence. Perhaps this combination of wistfulness and loneliness was the reason the silver bay had returned to the meadow - and lingered there long after her belly was filled. A few others shared the open space with her, but Rivaini ignored them, and they her. Still trying to sort through the fervor that Bondurant had awoken with her, the auburn mare wasn't particularly in the mood for company, though neither did she truly want to be alone. Her desires were... complicated.

Like her emotions.

They had curled so closely together for warmth in the storm's teeth that she and the bulky stallion might have become the same creature. The way that Bondurant had arched his muscular neck over hers - striving to protect her from the worst of the wind's bite - had not been romantic but had filled the younger mare with a warm glow regardless. And as Rivaini watched skeins of cloud drift by overhead, she decided that what she had felt was... secure. Protected. The way a daughter should feel in the company of her sire; the way she had never felt standing beside her own. This realization filled Rivaini with an indescribable sadness and longing - many times she had sacrificed her own comfort, her own happiness, her own safety for the sake of her brother. But that had been the first time she had felt what it was to have a guardian of her own.

A shiver raked cold fingers down the russet mare's spine at the memory of the storm. The sun shone today, though it seemed as if its warmth was unable to penetrate the chill that had settled into her very bones. This winter business was novel to the mare who had grown up in a land where the seasons could be distinguished by rainy and not. Perhaps that should have made it exciting, but Rivaini found that she abhorred the season and could not see the beauty that others claimed of it. The smothering blanket of snow only served to leach the last of the color from the landscape, painting what should have been a colorful world in monochromes.

As just another figure absent of pigment, perhaps the new mare's arrival should not have drawn Rivaini's gaze. But she found that her senses felt keener in the profound still that followed yesterday's storm, and watched the stranger's movements with vague interest. Though the woman was slender to the point of appearing malnourished to the silver bay's eyes, she passed by the choice grazing that others of their kind had already uncovered without a pause, scenting the air. Then a pair of dark eyes swept her way, and the Andalusian's ears dipped backwards in response. Rivaini didn't know what it was this stranger sought, but hoped to make it clear that she would not find it with her.

Had she not earned a day of reprieve with all that she had sacrificed?

mare / five / silver bay tobiano / andalusian mix / 15.3hh