Meadow

In the fading golden light of a warm summer evening, a magnolia tree unceremoniously drops the last of its pale blooms.

For a time, little else occurs. Mist rolls in from the sea to shroud the edges of the meadow in a bloom of opaque white, and the trills of a nightjar swell and fade. But if any living thing gives notice or care for the state of a single, humble little tree, then they are not present tonight.

Then, beneath the boughs of the magnolia, there is stirring.

The form of a horse erupts from the blanket of abandoned petals beneath the tree, shedding them like a feather cloak. Magnolia-white gives way to cream tinged with rose, and a thin Fjord mare emerges from under the tree. Dark eyes in a sunken face take in the golden haze of the meadow; a lank tail twitches idly at a single fly. In spite of the heat—and it is that humid kind of heat that clings to you like molasses—the mare shivers as a faint breeze picks up to tousle the lank threads of her mane. Out of habit, she tests the air, but it is devoid of anything but the usual stories: earth and salt and grass, rabbits and birds and flowers, the musks of a hundred different strangers passing through.

It is as it has been for several months, when that last singular, familiar scent died once and for all.

It is what she'd wanted. It is what she'd asked for.

At least, that is what she tells herself—and has told herself—every cold night she's spent alone. She has driven away everyone she's ever loved or that has ever loved her. She has thrown away every chance of happiness, closed her heart to every opportunity. Her grown children are either dead or fled to corners of the world unbeknownst to her. Friends, relatives, lovers, prospective lovers, homes, herds, even her crown: all lost to her. All abandoned, before they could abandon her. And now she is no longer a young mare. What prospects does she have?

What happened to that naive little two-year-old who washed up on a rock all those years ago, full of fear but also hope?

Ylva has nothing left.

So she walks: aimlessly, at first, but her hooves soon find an overgrown path through the grass and carry her uphill, out into the open, toward the sea, while her mind disappears into a dark cloud.

When she comes to, it is at the edge of a cliff with the sea churning dark and angry below her, glints of sunlight breaking into white foam against the rocks. The sky is ablaze with every color, the sea breeze brisk enough to draw tears from her eyes. She must make quite the picture: a pale little mare on an open cliffside with the setting sun bathing her in liquid gold. Yet she has never felt smaller than in that moment, with her feet mere inches from the edge, so close she can count the blades of grass between her and the end of everything.

What is she doing here?

How did it all come to this?

A helpless sob rises in her throat.

"Please," she cries, to no one and nothing, her voice a croak lost in the wind. "I can't live like this anymore. I can't— I can't—"

The ocean waits in silence like a gaping mouth.