Falls

Faolain woke slowly. She had not quite fallen truly asleep, or at least not deep enough to be totally oblivious to her surroundings. Waking up, she felt no confusion as to where she was, and her memory of the mare beside her was clear despite her disorientation on the shores of the Crossing, and extreme exhaustion that had taken hold of her when she squeezed into the meager shelter of the trees.

It was still mostly dark, but a faint light was beginning to pale the edges of the sky. Faolain recalled the ramblings she had subjected her companion to earlier, and the good spirit with which the spotted mare had listened to her nonsense. She remembered talking about Atlantis, and the intrigue in the other woman’s voice. How long had she been asleep?

“I’m sorry, I dozed off,” she said, lifting her head and blowing a soft cloud of steam into the cold air. It had not warmed any since they had huddled into the shelter of the trees, but surprisingly, Faolain was comfortable. She still felt the pull of home from across the sea, but she didn’t want to leave yet. It was likely still too cold for a swim, and even if her companion changed her mind and did not accompany Faolain home, leaving would mean abandoning her to weather the frigid dawn alone.

“My name is Faolain, by the way,” she said. “It should be warm enough soon to leave, if you’d still like to travel south with me; the swim isn’t so bad once you get moving. If you’d like to stay, I’ll stay with you until the sun comes up.”

For a little while Faolain was still, watching the light bleed gradually across the sky. “Thank you,” she added, “For keeping me from freezing. I think I would have been in a lot of trouble if you hadn’t been here.”