Falls

They settle together in the clearing bedecked still with dew, and Rille turns his ears fully toward her to listen, intently, to all she has to say, entranced and intrigued by this mare who inexplicably seems to him to share some sort of kinship that he cannot even begin to understand, for they are not of the same breed at all and he has never, not once in his life, seen her before. “That is the beauty of the world,” he agrees. “That destruction begets renewal, always, in some form or another. There cannot be death without life, and vice versa.” His mind flits to the Thicket. He has no way to create a fire and burn the illness from the earth, nor does he wish in any capacity such a disaster to befall the woods, for it would threaten all of Luthien and not just those who live within the borders he maintains. But, it would be nice, he thinks, to have such a tool at his disposal— if such a thing as fire could be controlled.

His thoughts do not wander far, however. She has addressed a Moonwalker and he must, he must know what information she carries of such a creature who has haunted, for years, the heart of his mother. Regrettably, it is very little that she shares of this stranger— but it is enough to cement for Rille the reality of the individual, and he grasps one crumb to proffer it like a gold nugget on his palm as he leans toward her, breathing shallowly with the eagerness floating on his voice. “Tell me his stories, I beg you, for I know less than you and I am sorry for that, that I cannot offer you more than this:”

“It is tales of a Moonwalker which have led me, too, to these islands, but the tales I have been told were never linear nor grounded entirely in reality. I learned of him from my mother. The moon has ever been her strongest solace: from the time she was a filly in the Forest, glimpsing his cool light from above, to when she was a young mare adrift on this Crossing and bathed in that gentle glow— she was never alone when the moon rose.” He thinks of her trials on Salem, a worse sort of memory for her than even her neglected and rejected upbringing on Luthien. “Sometimes,” he says, a smile in his voice, “she told me my coat was covered in moon-kisses. But, other times her stories seemed not of that distant orb.” Rille settles back to tuck his chin thoughtfully toward his broad chest. “Sometimes, when the night was deepest and her luminous savior dim and far away, she would wake, weeping, for her Moonwalker. The first time I attributed it to fear of the dark. But, that cannot be it— she preferred shadows and evening and midnight to all other hours of the day.”

He pauses, glancing at the gleaming mare. “Forgive me. I feel my thoughts are scattered, but such is how I've come to learn of her Moonwalker: these bits and pieces are all I have to share with you. Four times is all she spoke of him.” He recalls each instance vividly but gives her the summary of it all, without wasting time setting each scene for his rush to share with her all he knows that it might help them both.

“First, that he was as haggard and pocked as the moon when he touched down to earth to be with her; rent-eared and scarred, he was the most beautiful thing she ever beheld. Second, that she never knew that the light of the moon could be so warm against her skin. Third, her selfish belief in his heart's betrayal when she perceived he favored her sister over her— this, this wracked her with more grief than anything, for she had not spoken to him since and it had been many years gone before she realized her error.” Rille pauses, closing his eyes against the memory of witnessed pain. Her wailing that night had been terrible.

“And the last,” Rille says quietly as he meets the steady gaze of his companion. “That though I may not be of his flesh and blood, I bear his looks all the same: a midnight body adorned with moonglow. She named me after him, and though my body bears no marks of his own travails the weight of my name carries it all: Rille.” A trench, a valley, a scar on the surface of the moon— his mother believed him to be beautiful for all those deep canyons of pain etched into his skin and Rille understands her choice of name for her son to be the greatest gift she could give her Moonwalker— a stallion, Rille knows now, of flesh and blood who took the whole of her heart and held it with such gentleness and warmth as she had never experienced before or since— what he would give to thank the man for his unconditional love and regard for a mare who once believed herself to be the least significant creature in the world.