VaLkA

mare / four / chestnut pangare / yakut / 13.0 hh

Valka thought that she had known heat when the spring had breathed its last on the island of Atlantis, and summer had arrived. Had she been better adapted, the season would have likely been indiscernible from that which preceded it; the sun still shone as fiercely, though there was slightly more time between sunrise and sunset. It was the density of the air that seemed to have changed, becoming so thick with moisture that the pale-maned chestnut struggled to pull it into her lungs. The humidity seemed to trap - and exaggerate - the slightly-higher temperatures as well, so that even in the shade the fluffy-coated creature was miserable. Today, the ever-present sheen of sweat on her coat was suddenly absent, and Valka knew that it boded ill.

Abruptly, the Yakut decided that she would suffer no longer. Over the course of the past moon’s cycle, Rougaru had been conspicuously absent - either the stallion had not deigned the small mare worthy of his attention, or he was elsewhere. Either way, Valka cursed Paradise’s king - and the uncouth brute who had left her here - as she stalked through the jungle, heading in the direction of the beach. Tiny ears twisted to and fro atop her head as she moved, alert for the expected sounds of pursuit, but her increasingly irascible manner had dissuaded the rest of the herd from pressing their company upon her. No one was near enough to witness one of their sovereign’s many concubines wading into the surf; at least, no one who cared enough to stop her.

Good. Though Valka would have embraced the release of frustrations that a fight offered earlier in her stay here, in her current condition she knew she could not manage the level of exertion that would be required to win. And though Rougaru might claim rightful ownership of her physical being, he had done nothing to possess the skjaldmær’s loyalty. Though she had left it well behind her, Valka’s heart still resided in the frozen plain that had once been her home, and with the tribe that had been torn apart by disaster.

In short, Atlantis could never be her home - and she would not pretend for even a moment longer.

The Yakut’s instincts led her unerringly north as she swam, even when she sighted the distant shadow of an island to the east. As she had familiarized herself with the language of this place, the small chestnut had also learned about the land itself. There were two islands north of Atlantis, and it was the furthest that she sought - the one that she believed to be called Tinuvel. Though the climate of the island she passed was likely favorable enough, it seemed prudent for Valka to put as much distance between herself and her captor as possible if she did not wish to be dragged right back into his sweltering purgatory of a kingdom.

By the time she reached the rocky shores of the second island, every muscle in the mare’s body ached. And after spending so long in the buoying waters of the sea, the sudden return from weightlessness was so disorienting that Valka did not attempt to travel far. Instead, she stopped where the beach began to yield to the sun-brittled grasses of summer, tucking her short legs beneath her body to tip over into a roll. By the time she rose again, her long auburn coat was drier but in a great disarray, and so the Yakut began the arduous task of putting it to rights. After a time, she even began to relax, her senses opening themselves to the familiarity that surrounded her.

It wasn’t quite home, but it was the closest thing to home she'd encountered since circumstances had forced her to leave.