VaLkA

mare / eight / chestnut pangare / yakut / 13.0 hh

Cold descended on Tinuvel; a cold as heavy as iron and implacable as a pack of hungry wolves. A cold that grasped the island by its throat and squeezed tightly, trying to strangle the breath of life from its gasping lungs. In the midst of this struggle, the weakest— the old and the young, the ill-adapted and the infirm— faltered and inevitably failed. But the strong of body and will survived, and grew stronger for their struggles. And creatures such as the Yakut— small and shaggy-haired and evolved to survive in the colder, harsher tundras of the north— they thrived.

Though this marked both the fourth and the hardest winter that Valka had faced in the Bay, never once was she tempted to stray from its bleak grey shores. Nor could she share in Vera’s misgivings. If there was anything in the world the skjaldmær was certain of, it was that this was where she belonged. For all of her certainty in that one truth, however, there were no shortage of doubts to weigh her down. And when she parted with the herd in the dying light of another short-lived day, those burdens were heavy enough that the chestnut broke through the hard crust of snow that her wider hooves would typically skim lightly over. Floundering chest-deep through the white blanket— sides heaving like a hard-worked bellows— she was forced to abandon her original course and to turn towards the pebbled beach, where the snow thinned to a sparse coat.

Pausing to catch her breath, Valka watched the waves rise up the shore and lost herself briefly in reflection. Pulling slowly at the tangled mess of her thoughts and revealing the truths that were buried within; the truths of her heartache and her grief. In the constant motion of spring and summer and fall, it was easy to outrun these things, but now— now the red woman was forced to face them. Even with Falda and Goose and Riddler to swell her heart, there was still an aching hollow left where Solomon had once been. A hollow that Bacardi might have filled, if she hadn’t pulled back like the ever-fickle waves. And while she might reach for him again, as those waves grasped time and again for the shore— the skjaldmær was afraid that this time might be different. That this time, he wouldn’t be there when she rose. Or worse, that the same wall of stone that’d risen between them on the day of Falda’s birth might rebuff her before she could draw close.

All in all, things in her heart were… painful. But like the hunger and cold and exhaustion, the stocky mare pressed forward; she endured. Because she didn’t have a choice. Because weakness was not an option; not when the Bay relied on her strength.

A dark shape stirred at the edges of Valka’s vision, and she turned her head towards the movement, nickering to the sooty mare. If Vera was perceptive, she might glimpse the lingering remnants of heaviness in her expression before she pulled the corners of her lips up into a smile. “Vera,” she began tentatively, torn between the reluctance to impose on another’s solitude and the impulse to curl herself around the woman’s hunched body. “This is a cold place to be alone with nothing but your thoughts. Did you want— did you want to join me? I promise we don’t have to share anything but our warmth, if you came here in search of peace.”