Meadow

Trials and grief had taken their toll on the silver black mare. She wasn’t ancient, but there were times over the course of the past year that she had felt like it. Times she felt like a boulder that had been eroded by the combined forces of storm and sea - bearing scars on her soul as it might carry cracks on its surface. Fate had taken from her until she’d forgotten what it was to be young. To be bright and new and full of life. And when it returned to her now… it was in a flood that her body could not hope to contain, even if she’d stood as tall and powerful as Bondurant. There couldn’t be room enough in her chest for so much joy, so it forced the air from her lungs in a breath that was half-sigh. There wasn’t enough room for the thoughts and memories that flooded her at the spotted stallion’s first tentative touch, so her mind went curiously blank.

And there wouldn’t have been enough room in her heart for everything that he made her feel - so perhaps it was a blessing that grief had cracked it open.

You are the most incredible mare I have ever met, Sabriel. By the time Bondurant spoke, the dark mare was almost breathless, but from some hidden reserve she found the willpower to speak. “By your age, I’d wager you’ve met many - so I’ll consider myself properly flattered,” Sabriel teased, her pale eyes laughing silently at the stallion. A moment later, however, his lips found her skin again - and any further words were lost in the rush of desire that overwhelmed her. Surrendering to it - and Bondurant - the silver-haired woman let herself be carried away, soaring even without wings. Feel lighter than she’d felt in a long time, even when the burden of his weight joined hers.

When it was finished, Sabriel stood motionless for a few moments, her eyes closed. Striving to hold on to the moment for as long as she could, and stave off the hollowness that she feared would arrive in its wake. But it didn’t. She still felt complete when the speckled stallion moved up to stand beside her, his lightly-colored body gently brushing her darker form. With a smile she turned to him, tucking her head under his in a gesture that was quickly becoming familiar and natural. “I won’t lie,” she murmured to break the silence, a mischievous smile curving her lips against his skin. “I was a little worried that I might kill you there, old man. But you-” Her voice became more serious, the tight curl of her lips relaxing. “Even the first time we met, you taught me to acknowledge my fears without letting them rule me.”

She lapsed into a thoughtful silence then, turning over the stones of her mind. Briefly pursuing the what-ifs that might have happened, if she had had not been too wounded to open her heart to him sooner. But it was a dark road to follow, and she didn’t want to bury the happiness they’d found beneath old grief. Exhaling its burden in a shuddering breath, she gave a wayward strand of Bondurant’s dark mane a gentle tug. “If you had known then- if you had felt then as you do now,” Sabriel began, watching the clouds drift their way across a sky that matched her eyes shade for shade. “Would you have let me leave you, that day?”

It was not, perhaps, an important question - except where it might pertain to the future. She couldn’t believe that he would bind her, except as she wanted to be bound - but then, Morrigan had once told her that love did strange things to the one who felt it. And while she had never put much value on the things her mother had told her before… well, she had proven right in some things. Perhaps she would prove right about this, too. Sabriel certainly didn’t feel like the same mare she had been before - with that vaguely-termed before even encompassing the moment she’d raced across the clearing to reach Bondurant’s side. It was fast, and terrifying, this falling in love - like tumbling endlessly through the air. And if she hadn’t been so certain that the old stallion would catch her, then she could never have found the courage to stay with him, as she was now.

“And now?” She asked, withdrawing herself from his embrace to meet the Andalusian’s gaze. Unable to read what she saw there yet, but feeling a thrill to know that the ability would come - given enough time. “I don’t know whether you want to stay with me. Or - or if I’m even enough to hold you.” Sabriel felt vulnerable as the magnitude of this truth reached her. Perhaps there was a reason that her Bondurant was a nomad without herd or home. Perhaps he had never desired such companionship - or his interest in her would wane when she proved no different than the others he’d surely shared of himself with. “You said that you are mine - but I would never command you, Bondurant. If there is ever a moment that you wish to go…. then I would only ask for the opportunity to say goodbye.” It would break her, but she’d been broken before. And even the short time they’d shared together was worth any amount of pain.

“I won’t be your prison, Bondurant. But I will stay by your side gladly - for as long as you should wish to keep me there.”