VaLkA

mare / six / chestnut pangare / yakut / 13.0 hh

Dawn never arrived.

Before her eyes, the sky faded slowly from black to grey— but the soft blush of pastel pink that Valka awaited did not come. Instead— as if the dam of the heavens had burst— icy flakes began to fall thick and fast, depriving her dark eyes of their sight. Moments before the shaggy chestnut had stood atop her favored bluff gazing pensively toward the sea, but now there was nothing before her save an endless wall of white. It coiled around the skjaldmær’s stout body like the tendrils of some leviathan, forcing the air from her lungs and tightening the muscled walls of her chest. Gasping, she turned her head slowly in the direction of the driving wind and dragged in a quick breath, wincing as the serrated edges of it clawed their way down her throat.

Even beneath the down layers of her fur, Valka was struck by the sudden cold. The temperature had dipped lower than she could remember it ever being before; colder than even a land as unforgiving as Tinuvel had any right to be. The Yakutian mare recognized the danger that she was in, but only dimly— her thoughts turned sluggish by the creeping chill that threatened to consume her. Somewhere beneath her, the warmth of the Bay’s herd was a promise of salvation. But from where she stood, they were as distant as a dream; as unattainable as the moon that had hung overhead only hours (days?) ago. There was no hope that she could find them, not with every sense disoriented by the swirling dance of wind and snow.

But somewhere within her, Valka felt her unborn child stir in protest, or perhaps lash out in anger— and that was all incentive she needed to fight.

Sifting through the haze of her memories, the red woman began to turn her body slowly, until she was facing in the direction that she believed the herd to be. From there, finding her to them was simple in theory— though in practice, walking a straight line while being buffeted by gusts of wind was not easy. Staggering and squinting against the icy kiss of snowflakes on her eyelashes, Valka watched for a single flash of color amidst the monochromatic vision her world had become. But after a few minutes of walking, the pony-sized creature drew to an abrupt halt. If her path had been true, she should have encountered the herd by now. And though the ground had leveled beneath her hooves long ago, she had felt it begun to slope upward again. Was it the same bluff that she had left, or the one further south that Bacardi tended to favor? There was no way of knowing, and the uncertainty froze the skjaldmær where she stood.

Desperate, desolate, she gave a piercing call— small ears pitching forward and then backward to follow the sound as it was spun about by the keening wind.