a soft lover and a wild wanderer (open) Posted on December 1, 2020 at 02:02:53 PM by Temür & Sayan Kötör
like ghosts they came; two greys in the gloaming It was in wandering that the small stallion with scars still healing (some invisible to the eyes of all but a select few who were blessed with truer Sight) found purpose, weeks after all had seemed lost to him. If he’d been a lesser being, the grief would have surely been the death of him. But he had been born a survivor, delivered early in the midst of a winter harsher than any his herd had faced, and even with nothing left to him, his spirit would not yield.
He had been well-named, and the loss of his mother so soon after birth had blessed him with strength. All the days that should have been mine, I give to my son. He will be Iron and he will endure. It was not lost on him that the manner of his saving came a second time in the same form. A mare, battered and bleeding, meeting his gaze with eyes that held a flicker of hope beyond the clouding pain.
The form of this one was taller and slender and somehow so much softer than his mother’s had been. She was a bird from a distant mountain compared to the she-wolf from the Steppes.
Temür had been unable to save his mother or his kin, but there was strength left within him, and he’d see it all spent if he could save this one life; keep the heart of a stranger continue beating. And so, upon learning of what had befallen the delicate woman, with forceful urging the Mongol drove her into the ocean, and bore the weight of her through the water, towards the distant shores. Perhaps it would not be enough, and those that pursued her would follow. But if nothing else, Temür believed it would buy the dappled mare time to recover from the worst of her wounds.
And in the waiting, he’d find his spirit renewed day by day.
Despite valiant effort, the stallion had been unable to make landfall upon the northernmost island, for a strong current pulled his weakened companion from him, and he would not forsake her now. His eyes, deep brown like rich, fertile earth, had hungrily scanned the coastline, memorising features of the landscape, and then he’d turned in the water and allowed the current to bear him to the floundering mare, but not without a bellow of determination.
Together they drifted between the mother island and a smaller isle green and lush. At the sight of the mountain range that seemed to dominate a large portion of the central landmass, Temür felt his heart ache with nostalgia for his homeland, which had mountains like this, the snow-capped peaks of them gleaming in the light of dawn like the jagged spines of felled beasts in the myths, monstrous and ancient.
Finally, the current slackened enough for Temür to pull the mountain-bird mare free of its chilling grip, and the two of them felt sand beneath their hooves, even as the outgoing tide tried in vain to carry them back into the deep. Ushering the exhausted mare ahead of him, the ghostly pale stallion (a little shorter then she and far more solid and stocky) guided her towards the yawning mouth of an estuary. This close to the shore, the water was still brackish, so he did not allow her to drink of it, but soon he would lead her further upstream.
For now, though, the poor creature seemed utterly spent, and she sank to her knees without a word, collapsing in on herself and falling into a light sleep the moment she closed her bewitching eyes. For his part, though he too was bone-weary, Temür would stand watch over her until such a time as she recovered, or he found another worthy in his eyes to be entrusted with her care.