VaLkA

mare / five / chestnut pangare / yakut / 13.0 hh

Time and again, the strength that had served the Bay’s skjaldmær well in her past now failed her in the present.

Or perhaps it was fortune that had abandoned Valka, and not strength. After all, she had been certain of her victory against Solomon until the stumble that had cost her everything. Her pride, the purpose she’d desperately sought, the peace that might have been won if Tinuvel were truly unified - all gone in the time it had taken her heart to beat once. And where only a season ago the fluffy chestnut might have sulked and chafed at the injustice of it all, now she could not even muster the fire for that much. Failure had taken its toll on her, but alone it could not have shaken her resolve. No, what Valka truly missed was the certainty that she’d once felt, and the resolve that had driven her.

Once, she had travelled a path that was both clearly defined and bathed in the light of integrity. And now? Now she had lost path and purpose, and could not find her way back for the shadows that surrounded her. Uncertainty. Fear. Loneliness. The latter was, perhaps, the greatest. Before, she’d always had her brothers and sisters in battle - and once Goose had served as a substitute for them. But since his return from the Lagoon, the relationship between the stocky mare and the towering stallion was strained and silent. In yielding to the enemy, Goose had betrayed Valka’s trust - and broken the vulnerable piece of herself she’d given to him. Had she failed him so greatly, that he believed it better to side with darkness than to place his faith in the mare who had vowed to protect him?

And then there was Solvarr to consider. If she had been given the choice, the Yakutian mare would have never asked for the son she’d been given - but since the moment of his birth, her heart had belonged to him. That the sun-crowned boy chose Solomon over her wounded Valka far more than she admitted, even to herself. She missed the moments that she’d shared with the colt, moments that she had felt an emotion that was both indescribable and yet more real than anything she had ever known before. Without Solvarr, she felt desolate and adrift. And yet - had it truly been fair to allow so much of the burden of her own contentment to ride on a single creature? Even in her despair, Valka knew the answer.

She knew, as well, that the only way to achieve fulfillment was to go out into the world beyond the Bay and find it.

As ever, the first step was the most difficult. The skjaldmær had been still for so long that a thin layer of snow had drifted down to cover her shaggy red coat, and her joints had locked her short limbs into their rigid and unmoving state. But with an awkward sort of lurch, Valka did manage to overcome the inertia that had sapped her body’s strength, and began moving towards the rocky shore.

Without a specific destination in mind, she moved slowly. And if anyone intercepted her, then the pony-sized mare would pause her journey willingly. But within her there was a spark of determination that was growing, and a part of her that would not be satisfied to remain a prisoner in the Bay any longer - even if that imprisonment was by choice. For better or worse, Valka had become part of a larger world from the moment that her own was shattered.

And now - years later - she was finally hungry to see more of it.