In those moments, time and space move strangely - stretching and bending; freezing and rushing - and the words exchanged between the two of them are like spells, distorting the fabric of Kune’s reality in a way he might only describe as a strong sense of deja vu. Yet he knows the colt feels it too, for those youthful brown eyes are no longer so full of fear as they are a certain intense knowing. Kune listens to the boy with his breath hitched in his throat, but every word the boy speaks only intensifies the longing in his heart. To hear his mother tongue spoken again from one other than Božena - and not just anyone, but a child - makes his heart sing with hope for the first time in a long time. Perhaps his people - his culture - are no longer quite as doomed as he had thought.
We belong to each other, the boy says, and to an outsider it might seem strange for a young colt to profess such a thing to a complete stranger, when moments before he had been fleeing in fear, but it’s not strange to Kune. There is, and has always been, an invisible thread - an unspoken bond - connecting those of their people. It’s a bond that transcends age or sex or any mortal matter. Their people are not whole unless they are together, and when they are together, all is right within the world. They are oxygen to each other’s flames: breathing life and light and purpose into one another.
It’s then Kune realizes what a grave mistake he had made in leaving the Peak: in leaving Božena. He has not been himself this past year without her. He has been a shell, a shadow doomed to wander the Crossing looking for his purpose for eternity while his inner flame gutters into weak embers.
His vision blurs with a sudden rush of tears. He blinks his eyes clear, but the lump in his throat remains, and when he speaks his voice is hoarse. “Dítě,” he begins, the weight of that word heavy on his tongue, but then the boy is turning, leaving him, and Kune’s expression crumbles. Then the child beckons him, and Kune stands a little straighter, watching as the colt turns again to flee across the grass. Kune’s dark eyes follow the path the boy follows, and when he realizes the boy intends to lead him back to the Peak, his stomach drops into his hooves. The mountain is stark and white today, already capped with snow that reflects the sunlight to an almost blinding degree. Kune does not feel worthy to traverse its slopes again.
Yet there could be no clearer message from the spirits.
Kune inhales a deep breath of the crisp autumn air and, with a shove of his huge hooves against the dirt, eases back into a ground-eating gallop.
He is going home.
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