He emerges from the pines like a shadow, limber and light on his hooves. I watch and wait with bated breath, but he does not come any closer, and I am left wanting. What is it that holds him back, I wonder? I am no fool, I know the season, and I know the nature of men. But there is no darkling hunger in his eyes, just a melancholy that I cannot help but find intriguing. I cannot pursue that train of thought right now, though. He towers above me at the cusp of my pool, where he remains frustratingly beyond my reach. I wonder what he must think of me. I must appear mad in his eyes, standing so still in water so cold. But, nothing I do is without purpose, and even though I’m smaller than him, I am no fragile creature.
My legs are iron beneath the water, and they do not bend so easily to the whims of others.
My ears quiver as I turn them forward, to catch every syllable he utters. The timbre of his voice threads itself through the murmur of the trickling waterfall in a way that is almost mesmerising, though I cannot help but wonder if it’s just the cold talking, slowing my thoughts and leading them astray. I focus instead on what he says. Cannot help but tip one umber ear back, a small signal that paves the way for my words. But first, I draw back, because I am determined to discern the fringes of his thoughts, and glean something of his presence here, hesitant as it may be.
“A name is not nothing,” “I say, with a little more bite than I’d intended. Perhaps I’ll blame it on the cold, the way I force the words through my chattering teeth. The truth, though, is that the words I speak carry the weight of something he did not seem to understand. Here in this unknown land, my name is all I have.
It was chosen for me, with reason and for a purpose, by one I onceloved with the whole of me.
I gaze at him across the pool of water seemingly oblivious to the shivers that wrack my body. But I feel every tremble, and my muscles and joints howl in unison, so that my mind seems filled with a cacophony of complaint. They beg me to leave for the mirror pool, where I will find relief. But I am stubborn, determined, and I will not be deterred from my course so easily. More than that, I cannot leave him, not without seeking to know him - the sad-eyed stranger standing upon my shore. “Sometimes a name is everything.” I speak these words with far more tenderness, lifting my muzzle and pitching my voice so that I am sure he will hear them, if he is listening.
In them, I hope he finds some small measure of comfort.
"Why do you hesitate?" I ask of him, my blue eyes intent upon him, bold and blatant in my scrutiny. There is something about him that feels so familiar, and it frustrates me that I cannot pinpoint what it is. So, I dig a little deeper, in the hope that, in whatever time we have here, I will make sense of things. “For you seem to have so little to lose.” Even as the words leave my lips, I consider them, and ponder if I could have fashioned the edges of them a little more softly. No apology follows, nor do I scramble to take the words back, or rephrase them. In a way, this too - how he chooses to take my words - will reveal something of him to me.
We are not so different, him and I, and I will endeavour to teach him this, if I am given the chance.
“Only one who is lost would wander so deep into the cold of winter.” It is my last attempt to draw him out, to draw him to me, and I choose the words carefully, speak them from the heart. Then, I fall silent and still. I linger there, on the opposite shore, to listen, if he wants to speak.
And then I return to the water.
“Come to me,” I demand softly, as I wade to the centre of the pool, where I had stood before, so as to resume my mysterious vigil. I bow my head to drink, and the chill of the water leaves my lips tingling. What I ask of him now is but a repetition of my previous request, and how mad must I seem for repeating it? Oh, but he cannot yet know that I would never ask anything of him, nor any other, what I was not willing to give of myself first, or that which I did not deem him capable of giving. And I see him now, standing there; a formidable figure, truth be told. If I were to seek shelter in his shadow and tuck myself against his leeward side, I’d wager the winter wind wouldn’t dare set its frosted teeth to my deep red hide.
But that is not what I seek from him, and to be protected is not something I’d ask for. My head and my heart have never been able to trust in promises of safety that come from the mouths of strangers. To have faith in such a thing, I need to first feel deserving of it - to have earned it - and be willing to reciprocate. That I have only found such a match once thus far in all the moons I’ve been alive is no small thing. But I have strength and spirit and scars. I am so alone, and so alive.
And so cold.
"Tell me who you are." I cannot wait for much longer. Desperation prickles at the forefront of my mind, and my chest tightens a little, hungering for air and warmth and compliance most of all. It threatens to bleed into my voice and I let it. "And I will show you." I cannot be patient forever, and if this one cannot bring himself to do as I ask, as I shiver in the water for my own reasons, having taken the first steps, willing to meet him more than halfway… I will depart from this place, for then I will know that he is not what I am seeking. |