Falls

’I don’t understand.’

Kvothe’s peace, as it turned out, was doomed to be as fleeting as the flicker of her memories. As brief as the glances she stole of this stranger who she knew. Pulling away from him slightly (but not separating from him; she wasn’t nearly strong enough for that), the chestnut woman broke her silence with a bitter laugh. It was a sound that Tyr would not recognize,a sound that he could never imagine her uttering. Because even during the worst of her grief and pain, the Kvothe he’d known was incapable of such bitterness. And in recognizing this startling change, perhaps he would start to look closer — to seek out the other ways that their time apart had reshaped her.

If he did, there would be no shortage of things to find. The most obvious would be the scar just above her left eye, but that was hardly the only difference. A handful of gray hairs — few in number, but distinct amidst the darker strands that hemmed them — had woven themselves into the deep red tapestry of her mane. The soft curves of her body were sharper where hips and shoulders and cheekbones were no longer padded by flesh. But perhaps the most significant was the way her body had tensed after that laugh, as if to brace itself for a physical blow. In all their time together, the Friesian mare had never flinched from the huge stallion.

But beneath these changes, Kvothe was still there, still herself. It showed in the warmth that melted her chocolate eyes when she looked up at Tyr, meeting his eyes again. It showed in the way she leaned into his broad body, trusting that he would not let her fall. It showed in the pleading note of her words — betraying her fear that without answers, he might leave. “If I could, then I would tell you.” And it showed in the way she sought to comfort herself in her companion's touch. Burying her muzzle in the soft snow of his mane, breathing quietly of him until the threat of tears no longer burned her throat. “But I— I don’t know.”

And then it burst from her again, as it had in the moment that she’d squeezed her eyes closed, shutting out the world. Shutting out him. Only this time, Kvothe didn’t. This time, the thought of losing him, even for the instant it would take to blink, squeezed at her sides like some great, taloned claw. “She told me that this place wasn’t real! That it was a dream the fever put into my mind, that— that we’d been living together for some time as exiles.” Like the bloom of some dark flower, anger and betrayal and hurt were unfurling inside her, and this too was new. Soft and gentle a creature as Kvothe might be, there was a fierceness to her in that moment that would give anyone pause.

“But she lied—” the mare continued, lips peeling into a brief snarl with that word. “—didn’t she? There’s no other way that I could find my way here so easily, or that you could know my name, or—“ —as suddenly as it had come, the fierceness faded. Kitten-soft again, she pressed her lips to Tyr’s neck. Skimming them alone the thick arch until they’d reached the hollow of his throat, then picking up the thread of her speech again. “—or that I could know you. That I could feel—” The flush of blood was invisible beneath her dark skin, but there was no hiding the self-conscious way she stepped back, her gaze sliding down to the earth.

“But you never answered me,” She spoke after a moment, breaking the uncomfortable silence before Tyr could ask her to continue. “Who are you?” There was a world of questions on her tongue: how did you come to know my name? What was I to you? Was I happy here? But Kvothe sensed that the question that she’d asked was the most significant of them all.

That in its answer, she might rediscover herself.