Meadow

VaLkA

mare / five / chestnut pangare / yakut / 13.0 hh

After blaspheming their gods, the skjaldmær anticipated to be met with anger, and possibly even physical blows. And - truth be told - Valka would have welcomed it after the emotional toll that the past few seasons had taken on her. In her youth, she had been trained to meet enemies of every conceivable kind in battle. She could best an opponent of greater size, as her victory over Goose had proven - or even multiple foes at once, in the right circumstances. She had chased scavengers from the bones of her battle-sisters, and scuffled with a starving wolf who’d sought easy prey in the wrong place. But she couldn’t defeat something as intangible as despair in a physical fight - not that truth would have stopped her from trying.

Until recently, battle and bloodshed were all she’d ever known… and there was still a certain comfort in returning to the familiar.

When the two strangers turned to face her, however, it was with curiosity instead of the hostility that her words should have incited. Baffled, the shaggy chestnut listened to the white mare’s response, one ear turning out to the side to express her uncertainty. The other woman accepted the potential severance of all she’d known with remarkable calm - far more than Valka had shown when she’d first arrived on the islands.

It was difficult not to envy her. At least, until her strange words cut through the tangled mess of the Yakut’s inner conflicts in one swift stroke.

If the gods can’t hear us, they can’t stop us either. Never before had the red woman felt so empowered by the abandonment that was still a raw wound inside her. Years had helped to heal the grief from losing her tribe as she had, but nothing could heal the betrayal she’d felt. That their gods could not only permit such a thing to happen, but had perhaps orchestrated it themselves. What this stranger had said… it didn’t seal the wound, but it did free her. If the gods had truly turned their back on their kind, then she benefitted as much from the absence of their harsh judgment as she might have from their blessings.

The gold stallion was quick to try and wrest Valka’s peace from her, but its roots were already pushing deep into the soil of her heart. With a snort, she tossed the pale disarray of her mane and clawed out the ground with one small hoof. Countering his devoutness with equal disdain. “If things are as you say, then I would not live. No - your friend is right. They cannot both forget us and bring our end.” And she must be forgotten, if fate had not claimed her here. But forsaken was better than dead.

“I am called Valka,” she said after the span of a couple breaths, her dark eyes on the pale Icelandic. Wanting to offer something in return for what she had been given, unequal though this exchange might be. After a moment, her gaze broke and found the buckskin - including him, too, despite the gulf of differences that seemed to separate their beliefs. It was only after she studied him closer that Valka realized how truly young he was - and then her heart ached for him, too. In her own youth, she had been as strong as resolve; as confident in her knowledge.

But such certainty only seemed to fade with time and experience.