Posted on September 22, 2020 at 07:59:52 PM by Solvarr
He was still learning about the world, and abstractions such as war or peace were beyond the pale colt with the sun-touched crown. So he didn’t sense the tension that had crackled around his dam like an electric aura when she returned from the Elsewhere she had gone with a large, hairy stallion. Solvarr couldn’t know the lion’s den the Bay’s skjaldmær had braved, and the sense of foreboding that she carried with her - the grim certainty that there would be consequences for her actions. No, the only truth the white-and-gold boy knew was this: Valka was the source of all that was good in his world. She was comfort, safety, and nourishment. And she had returned to him, enabling him to forget the first stabs of fear he’d felt as quickly as they had invaded his mind.
At least, until the palomino stallion had arrived with the tides.
The battle that had followed was brief but not bloodless, and a terrifying thing for a child as young as he to witness. That his mother - the creature whose warm body he slept beside or beneath - could produce such terrible, terrifying sounds was a revelation that he could not understand. That anyone should seek to harm her was just as unimaginable. For most of the scuffle he’d been paralyzed by the unfamiliar combination of uncertainty and fear. But when control of his small body finally returned to him, Solvarr did the only thing a child could do when they were scared - he attempted to flee to his mother’s side, taking little heed of the flailing hooves and colliding bodies. And Valka - parting and backing off to catch her breath, still weakened by both her recent labor and the exertions to reclaim Goose - found her focus on Cullen broken by the sight of her son in danger. With a snap of her teeth and a furious cry she sent Solvarr skittering away, but it was too late. Her distraction had provided just the opportunity that the Lagoon’s boss needed to seize Loire and escape.
In any case, this first experience was hardly enough to teach a creature whose brain was still striving to mature about the dangers of the world he’d been brought into. For a couple days, certainly, the small colt was wary and fearful, but the memory of the young was like a sieve, and the moments of terror faded quickly from recollection. Thus when Valka had disappeared again today, he did not draw the connection between the events; could not fathom the conflict that she had found herself drawn into. Or subsequently, the possibility of war that loomed over them all. Solvarr only knew that the center of his universe had gone, leaving him in the care of the familiar pale mare who had also been present at his birth. And like any planet whose star had died, he could only drift aimlessly, the green carpet of grass that now flourished across the Bay tickling his fetlocks when it stirred in the breeze. The gentle passage of small hooves was heard, but largely ignored; they were dim things in the face of what he was feeling. For the first hour of Valka’s absence, Solvarr had simply been uncertain. But the uncertainty was quickly building its way into the familiar flutterings of fear.
Struggling to deal with thoughts and emotions that were far too mature, his brain did not process the collision until the filly had begun to disentangle herself. The boy mirrored her, his small figure wriggling free and then straining to stand upright again - a process that took comically long given both creatures’ lack of coordination. And here, perhaps, he would have fled to his dam’s side - if not for her absence, and the familiar voice and scent that penetrated the shroud of fear that had been quick to enfold him in its suffocating embrace again.
Like his mother, Solvarr is not a verbose creature, but he brushed the filly’s lips with his own, his ears tilting forward at her question. "I’m okay," he finally said, though he wasn’t quite certain whether or not this was true. In the case of their unintended collision, at least, he had suffered no lasting harm. But he still felt a sense of foreboding without knowing what the emotion was, or why he was feeling it. And because it was impossible for him to understand, his mind was already beginning to shy away from it, and focus on the possibility of a distraction that the young girl’s arrival had provided.
So far he had only played with his dam, whose tolerance ebbed and flowed like the tides. But it was just beginning to occur to him that Poem might like to play, and that she might be even more fun than Valka. At the very least, he thought that if she tired of his antics, Poem's nips would probably hurt less.
Replies:
There have been no replies.
Post a reply: