lead me to a place
where i can be found
Drifting, the mostly-white mare does not know how much time passes before the male of her own kind approaches. She knows that the world the world has drifted too— that for a long moment, everything around her is silent and still. Beyond the sibilant sigh of the waves and the gentle whisper of the wind, Fernweh can hear only the steady rhythm of her own heart. But such isolation has never troubled the nomadic creature, who would have no companion at all if not for the inanimate life that ever-surrounds her. Instead, she is comforted by the warm sun that caresses her back, by the tickle of grass beneath her pale skin. These things are as close to
real touch as Fernweh has come in seasons beyond count— and they are enough to keep her heart light and her thoughts content.
But everything that has a beginning is doomed to also end.
Her solitude ends in the soft tread of hooves on earth and the deep rumble of an equine voice. Twitching forward to cup the gently-spoken syllables, Fernweh’s ears are the first part of her body to reanimate. In the seconds that follow her head lifts, tilting gently to one side when her dark gaze alights on the tall body before her. While she has felt no grief for the absence of company, a strange poignant joy fills her at the sight of the ivory stallion— so powerful that his words briefly evade her. And when the veil of her wonder is finally penetrated by reason, their meaning reaches her slowly, like a drifting of snow falling from the sky to cover the bare brown earth.
“Injured?” Fernweh repeats, her ears now tipping outward with uncertainty. For as far back as her memory extends, no one has ever shown concern for her welfare. Nor has anyone has come so close that she can feel the heat radiating from their body. Not until now.
“I— no, I’m not hurt. Just tired. I—” The thick-bodied mare feels the weight of the stranger’s gaze and breathes deeply to calm the nervous flutter of her pulse. The smooth skin of her muzzle wrinkles briefly at the musky scent of his skin, though it is more
unfamiliar than unpleasant. And distracting. Exhaling the contents of her lungs in a soft snort, the white woman attempts to shift her focus to the words that tumble from her lips.
“I didn’t know that there would be another world beyond the one that I spent my life exploring. But I was called here, so I came.” Deep brown eyes probe those of her masculine mirror gently, seeking answers to the thousand questions that are tangled on the tip of her tongue. After a moment of struggle, she is able to voice two before her voice fades back into nothingness.
“Are you of this world, then? Or were you called here as well?” Fern has never wondered at her purpose before— she has only drifted like the soft down of dandelion seeds borne by the wind. Or the salt-polished bones of driftwood carried ashore by the tides. But with undeniable evidence of
destiny both beneath and before her, the fewspot cannot close her eyes to it now.
She can only wait, and wonder where the fates will lead her next.