VaLkA

mare / four / chestnut pangare / yakut / 13.0 hh

Valka’s rigid stance yielded only slightly in response to the more congenial direction that their conversation had taken. Not enough to demonstrate complete ease, but sufficient to show the stallion that her offer of a second chance had been genuine. This, too, was the best that the small chestnut could offer for now. In the time she had spent guarding her tribe’s king and fighting in her people’s wars, never had the skjaldmær faced a situation quite like this. Opponents had always existed with a sort of anonymity - those whom she had fought were either killed or exiled without exception. Valka had never glimpsed the individuals that lay beneath the enemy; she had never tried.

Learning more about Goose didn’t eradicate the core of the Yakutian mare’s beliefs, but it did lead her to reconsider their inflexibility. Perhaps there was a place for mercy, if one’s foe demonstrated true desire to alter their course.

“It is little. I not look to tear home from family. Not want to be mudak, like Rougaru.” Valka’s lips curled as she spoke the name of the silver bay; as if his name were an unpleasant taste that she hoped to expel from her mouth. How many more like the stallion were there? How many mares chafed against shackles - perhaps for their entire life - as she had done for a matter of seasons? It was a grim thought, but Goose might be able to provide some valuable insight into the politics of the islands, if he could be persuaded to share what he had learned. Perhaps it was time that he hear her story.

“I tell you why I come here, and why this.” Valka offered. She did not wait for confirmation from the buckskin-and-white, but launched immediately into a curt summary of what had led her down this path. If Goose had no desire to hear, he only needed to turn and walk away. “My people, my home, are gone. From our sacred mountain came fire, and all die - except me. I think gods angry, so I leave. Come here. But things different, and I not understand. Ironclad take me, and I am his.”

There was a flash of - not anger, but something like it in the Yakut’s deep brown eyes. Anger, after all, was an ember with little fuel, doomed to die. And what Valka felt for the colt was something that burned deep within her, unaltered over the seasons that had since passed. “I want to explore, this is new land. But when I meet other stallion who teach me some words, Ironclad get angry. He give me to Rougaru, as….trade? It is hot on Atlantis, and I suffer. But Rougaru ignore me, no interest except to keep as shiny trinket. So I leave, and come here.” And from there, Goose knew what had happened. He had witnessed some of it on the beach, and then participated in the battle that had followed the next day.

“I am not prisoner anymore, but some are. Some not able to fight, not able to free self like Valka. I will help them, Goose. No one should be treated like piece of meat.” The conviction in Valka’s voice grew stronger as she spoke of her aims, fueled by a combination of anger and hope. She did not expect that the stallion would be so easily swayed to her point of view, but she did not intend to ask him to fight her wars. Goose, too, had the right to his own freedom. But she hoped that what she told him might be enough to convince him to take part in other ways.