Falls

It is hard, standing against the current for them both, terrified that at some point the current would turn, increase, or he’d fall. He is beginning to sweat, trudging strong but deaf to anything but the sounds of water and his daughter in the direction that they’d chosen by chance. It is a relief with every lifted hoof until once again it was planted to prevent them from slipping even more or going down. He half wants to ask Brightwine to rear back, to hook herself on either side of his neck and let him do the walking.

Suddenly the pressure releases and he snaps his eyes up, terrified that something was going to wash towards them with the change of the current’s feel against his body. "Never." he says to her strained command, face taut with stress but firm in his decision. He doesn’t realize that this mare is the one whose legs he and his daughter had seen flailing in the current, but he doesn’t care who she is other than she has more of a sense of what to do and where to go. "Maybe – maybe over the next hill? Upstream, not down.."

His mane is plastered to him, the filly has her fluff flattened with the weight of how soaked she is already. How was he ever going to warm her after this either? Him on his own was not going to be enough, he thinks. He throws himself into her suggestion, into the direction she’d given. He was a domestic stallion, obeying commands of those smaller, weaker, lesser, than his bulk was not something that made him balk. He knew he was not the wisest creature to walk the world and even less so in these wild places with the unruly weathers…

His daughter tucks between their progress instinctively, hidden from the current by the eddy created between their two bodies. The water rises to the hollow of neck and chest for her, making Icewine surge her forward in front of both he and this new mare - lending his able shoulder to their savior and doubling the brace behind the child. "I am Icewine, this is Brightwine, already the current feels more calm - but the depth is rising and she will go under if we are not careful." His nerves are worn on his sleeve, the whites of his eyes showing as he glances at her.

"Lets press hard uphill now that we hit a calmer current."