Falls

Once the words have left her lips, something within Errant visibly loosens. In an instant he's at her side, guiding her with firm, warm pressure onto the dry bank, just as the Errant of old would have—and, just as the Ylva of old would have, she acquiesces without thought or objection, her belly dripping and her dark eyes staring without seeing into the muted greys and browns of the winter landscape.

With their barrels pressed together like hands in prayer, Errant's sonorous voice reverberates in Ylva's chest as if it's her own; yet, he might as well be speaking underwater for all that Ylva understands of his words. Her face is hot, and her blood roars in her ears with the same primal force as the water that crashes and churns beside them. When she looks at him, it is with the shell-shocked, slightly glazed expression of someone trapped in a waking dream: one uncertain if they are conscious or otherwise.

"What...?" she breathes, tilting her head slightly as the breath in her chest flutters like a caged bird. But if Errant answers, she does not hear that either.

Her lips are parted, the deep umber of her eyes swimming with the silver gleam of unshed tears. She focuses once more on the small, familiar details of his appearance: the depth of his gaze; the fan of his lashes; the trickle of water from the heavy bundle of his sodden forelock. She grasps for these sensory details like lifelines, hoping they will tether her to the earth. Yet her eyes are quickly drawn to the parts of him she does not know, the parts that frighten her: the unfamiliar scars, but also the subtle but undeniable aging of his features that must mirror her own. He is a middle-aged stallion, a half-stranger: a tender and painful memory invading her present, tearing at the walls she has built for herself, the walls that were already cracked and rotted at the foundations.

As hot tears streak down the pale fur of her face, Ylva rips her gaze away from him. Her expression twists; her teeth clench.

She cannot look at him.

She half-stumbles away, her hooves scattering muddy pebbles into the dying grass, and stops after a few steps with her back to Errant. Her head hangs; she convulses with shuddering breaths and half-swallowed sobs.

"I can't... I can't..." she chokes out, her voice half-strangled by a hundred nameless emotions.