VaLkA

mare / eight / chestnut pangare / yakut / 13.0 hh

Time could not be halted. It might creep along in moments that seemed to span hours, or sprint past in days that might’ve lasted seconds, but there was no ending its forward march. Like the skjaldmær who called the Bay her home, time was a primal force— a sea. Time was waves that took in the form of Bacardi’s withdrawal, of Solomon’s absence, of Brynja’s death. But for all that the waves took, they were known to give, too. And sometimes, the things that they’d taken even came back to you— worn by time and the trials they’d faced, different, but holding the same echoes of memory and emotion that had been theirs from the beginning.

Worn bare by time and trials herself, Valka could not help but to doubt the evidence of her senses— the echo of the familiar call, the golden figure— that announced Goose’s return. The red-furred Yakut was not accustomed to the fates showing her any form of kindness; of late, the waves had only taken. Solomon, Kesja, Brynja. And taken, and taken again. Solvarr, Mazarine, Gloriosiah. Of course, those were only the most recent losses... before them, there had been countless others. (Eydis, Herja, Signe. Other battle-sisters and -brothers whose names were forgotten and buried, but whose absences were no less mourned.) More than once— in the small mare’s darkest hours— these fallen comrades came to visit her, to offer the comfort of their presence or words, but these were only echoes of the creatures they’d once been. Only ghosts. And this— the painted stallion framed by the Bay’s blue sky and grey beach— it was the same.

Only... it wasn’t. It wasn’t.

In the same moment that she recognized the roan boy at her old friend’s side, the skjaldmær’s tethers were released. Leaving the dark shadow of her daughter behind her, Valka flew across the grass and over the pebbled beach to reach Goose’s side. Relishing the rare summer flowers, and the wind’s howl, and everything she had come to love about her home. But none of it could compare with the soft warmth of the stallion’s skin when she pushed her muzzle into the hollow behind his shoulder. None of it could move her in the way that the solid wall of his body did; none of it could reach her the way that the sound of his voice did. Small ears tipping forward to catch the last syllables of Goose’s greeting, the pony-sized creature unburied herself from the broad plane of his body and the creamy tangles of her own mane. Stepping backwards, but only enough to look up into the familiar face.

And then— struggling to subdue the strange, sobbing rhythm of her breaths— Valka finally found her own voice, if not quite the right words to go with it.

“Goose. I— you’re real. You’re here.”