Meadow

The winter threw it’s final hurrah against the field. Booming against the meadow, slamming into trees and skimming the rocks. Like the fist of the gods ramming down upon them, the storm is relentless. Spinning and swirling, painting his black skin white, dousing him with a dusting of snow and ice.

It brings life to him and stings his eyes.

In the white darkness, the blur moves closer, hesitating at his word. A boy, lost amongst the whirlwind of winter, cries out in a petulant voice, and Anawar chuckles. Deep and low, it climbs like velvety fingers up from his throat, leaping from his lips and falling lost amongst the winds. The stranger cannot hear him, for the howls of the storm are too loud, but his voice carries towards the now painted white stallion with ease.

If only he were death- then perhaps doom would not follow him like a dark cloud.

“Were I death, you would have met me long ago.” A promise, just as vengeance lined his heart and made his lungs burn. It is an empty threat, but it feels good all the same. The wind is screaming still, tugging at his hair and freezing his flesh. The winter will not go quietly- it is going kicking and yowling, baying like an infant denied candies at the store. There is life in the storm, though it threatened to make ghosts of all of them.

Into the wild storm he beckons the boy again. “Come.” A simple command, inviting the boy under the cover of the trees where the wind is a little less bitter, and where the snow cannot cut so violently into their flesh. Like cat claws the ice digs at him, and he shrinks back a little more, the crashing of the waves behind him hushed by the tantrum that booms overhead. “Into the trees- before death truly beckons for you.” He invites him truly now, knowing that there was alliance and friendships to be had in these spacious and welcoming islands.

It is important to have friends, and perhaps offering up a small patch of shelter under the trees would be enough to tempt the boy.