Falls

Kvothe was relieved to return to the Lagoon and the established pattern of her life— to the seasons that passed in predictable regularity, to the solitude that was both a gift and curse, and to the boy who’d become a man in her absence. Frey no longer needed his dam, but there was comfort in that too. The slender chestnut had never forgotten the child she’d lost, but seeing Tyr’s son standing tall and confident contributed to the easing of her grief. She’d failed as a mother to Pike and Aslan both, but redemption came in the certainty of Frey’s future, and absolution in the way she’d given everything for him. Her joy, her peace, her hope of ever returning home— these sacrifices she’d made were worth it to see the scars he showed her proudly. To see him smile, even if there was an air of her own melancholy behind it. She’d done well, she had.

—So why was it that the russet mare still felt so hollow?

Following a faint trail that traced the Lagoon’s boundary, Kvothe’s thoughts turned to the kind stranger she’d met those years ago. Tyr. The connection that she had with him was beyond explanation; a series of intricate knots that no amount of thought could unravel. In their time together, the Friesian had both feared and fled to him, and at his side she’d known joy and sorrow in equal measures. In fact, the only thing that they’d never shared was passion. Kvothe valued the General— loved him even, in her own way— but he wasn’t hers in the way that Ironclad had once been. And though she was considered his by everyone, it wasn’t the same absolute surrender that she’d given her King. To her, they were nothing more or less than two friends whose paths had become tightly intertwined.

Despite that truth, she’d still come to depend on Tyr; to need him. So when the strange little stallion came forward with his challenge, the red woman searched the shadows for the one creature whom she was certain would always watch over her. But he didn’t come. Instead, a golden boy scarcely older than her own answered, rising on his hind legs to clash with the grey shadow. And Kvothe, watching the scene unfold from a thicket, did the same thing that she’d always done when faced with the inevitable destruction of her world.

She ran.

Out of the trees and across the meadow, where shoots of green grass were just beginning to peek up from the bare brown earth. Through a stream and up the shallow bank on the other side, pausing only long enough to get her bearings. From there the chestnut veered abruptly north, pounding across the soft loam of a forest with the desperate thrumming of her heart echoing in her ears. Run, run. It seemed to whisper, a hum that grew and grew until it consumed everything else. Run. Through the trees ahead, Kvothe glimpsed sunlight shimmering on water and the colorful bodies of her own kind.

Run!

Charging into the clearing, the copper-red Friesian flung herself into the Falls’ pool and backed away from its edge, as if nothing— and no-one— could hope to claim her there.