Meadow

Ylva watches as a somber look falls over Errant’s face like a storm cloud and as the wheels turn within his great head. When he speaks, it’s with the care and the solemnity of a stallion who has been unwillingly bid to bare scars he would prefer to keep hidden, and Ylva feels a little stab of guilt for pressing him in such a way that would make him feel obligated to remind her of his past. She has never before asked him to elaborate on the events that had given him his name or brought him to the islands, so the details of what he had told her the day they’d met - when she had not expected to see him ever again - had been hazy; thus, at the very least, this rehash of details allows Ylva to refresh her memory, and she tucks the information away for later use, trying, in the meantime, not to wonder too deeply about the supposed crimes Errant had committed in his past life. It’s difficult to imagine a stallion that had proven himself to be nothing other than kind, loyal, gentle, and humble to be anything else.

I do not know that I could ever give of myself to any land or herd again.

Ylva’s gaze softens even as her lips press together in a firmer line. She turns her head away, then, to gaze out across the misty meadow beyond, now bathed in light from the rising sun. She thinks of the past two years: namely, how she had pledged something similar to herself as soon as she’d turned her back on Tinuvel and her herd, and how she had shied away from prolonged contact with any stallion that seemed interested in her. Liland’s betrayal had truly scarred her, and while she had washed up on the Crossing, pregnant and heartbroken, with no plans for her future, the Crossing had become her refuge, a place where she was no longer bound by the thorny chains of herd life.

Why, then, does it give her some strange pang to hear Errant say such a thing?

He continues on, and Ylva listens with one red-tipped ear turned in his direction, uncertain what to make of the heavy sensation that sits like a boulder in her chest. Her eyes are unfocused until his monologue is concluded and his question hangs in the air, raw as an open wound with vulnerability. When finally she turns to him again, her eyes are bright with affection, but behind them is something quieter, something somber and reflective.

“You are no burden, Errant,” she says, giving her head a minute shake. “I did not mean to give you that impression, only that sometimes… Sometimes I wonder if this life of mine is one worth living. If I cannot even be certain of that, how can I ask another to live it alongside me?” She lets the question fade with the mist of her breath into the frigid air.

“You say you don’t know if you could ever give yourself to another herd again. For so long, I have felt the same, but with Runar nearly grown…” She turns her head. “When I said you have been good for me, Errant, I meant it. I think I see, now, that I probably never should have isolated myself in such a manner, at least not for so long. It was no life to choose for anyone, least of all myself or my son, who has known nothing different.” Her imploring eyes, honey-brown in the sunlight, seek his once more, and there’s a wetter shine to them than there was before. “If I were to find a new home - a real one - would that mean we had to part, Errant?”