VaLkA

mare / six / chestnut pangare / yakut / 13.0 hh

The skjaldmær’s pain was a tide, and it was rising to bury her.

Valka could remember nothing of her journey back to the Crossing’s northernmost edge, nothing of the swim that had carried her home. It was as if a wall had risen between past and present, cleaving mind from memories of her battle with the giant gold stallion. Lying damp and bedraggled amidst the sea-worn stones of the Bay’s beach, the chestnut Yakut could not even recall whether she had claimed the vengeance she’d sought. Or the face and name of the woman whose freedom she’d challenged for. They were trivial things to the grinding ache that accompanied each breath, meaningless to the sting of salt in her abraded flesh. They might have happened a lifetime ago, or even to another warrior-Queen— one whose pride and courage had not been shattered into brittle shards.

The broken creature that she was now might have been born onto this cold and unforgiving beach.

In the moments or hours that followed, Valka drifted between the nightmares of reality and those that awaited her in slumber. She exhaled, shuddering at the fire that laced through her left side, and saw Ironclad emerge victorious over her Hersir again— but this time, Bacardi fell and did not rise again. The shaggy-coated mare trembled as a cold wind sunk its fangs into her, biting down to her very bones… and watched Solomon turn away from her again, a dark filly trailing in his wake like a shadow. Writhing on the ground— struggling to stand, to follow— a piteous moan escaped Valka, fading into a soft whimper, and then silence. A thick grey shroud pulled itself across her dark eyes, and for some time she did not stir again.

When the world returned to her (or she to the world), everything was grey. The sea that had climbed high enough to tug at the pale strands of her tail was the color of smoke. The sky that hung above her was a sifting of ash. While the skjaldmær drifted, it seemed that the world had burned around her— but she rose to stand in its remains, a solitary flame against the approaching darkness. You have so much more you have to do, before anything is to ever claim you.

On limbs that trembled and threatened to buckle with each stride, Valka began to stagger inland.

While she’d slept, the tide of her pain had receded enough to unbury her memories. Dark eyes probing the night, she remembered facing Tyr in the moments before their clash. Remembered the lances of pain that had punched into her chest, her hip, and even one ear. The tattered remains of that small short ear flicked forwards at the gentle tread of hooves over damp soil, the soft rhythmic sounds of another creature’s breaths. Her own exhales were rough and ragged by comparison— and the sound of her voice when it came, even more. “Bacardi?” The red woman’s nostrils flared, and her pace quickened. But the exertion was too much, too much.

And with a sigh like a retreating wave, the skjaldmær fell, defeated.