Ridge

His mother is dead.

Renvari has already forgotten where her body lies in the depths of the jungle, but he figures that is how she would have wanted it. Faolain hadn’t been sentimental; her vessel in life would mean nothing to her in death, and she would want her children to go about their lives in her absence. Ren knows vaguely where she had curled up for the last time in the heavy darkness of the Ridge’s most dense forests, but only because he had been there when she had died, and he had taken the minutes-old colt — his brother — away from her body before it grew too cold. A dead mare couldn’t feed a suckling foal, and Faolain would want her youngest son to live.

Despite the numerous important things happening in the spot where his mother had died, Renvari doesn’t remember the way there. He stares into the gaping mouth of the jungle for a long time after securing Horizon, but he doesn’t wander in, and eventually he turns away. It’s how she would have wanted it, he thinks.

He isn’t sure why his father is stepping down now of all times, but he wonders if it has something to do with Faolain’s death. This is another thing Renvari chooses not to dwell on. Tyr has every right to just be tired, honestly, but it’s something Ren doesn’t know if he’ll ever find out for sure. Both his parents had been of so few words that the painted stallion is used to just shrugging off any need for an answer. Surely, either of them might have told him anything he had asked to know, and that part was on him, but the fact was that Ren never bothered asking.

After a few moments of solemn consideration, Renvari turns from the tangled vines and dense shadow. The Ridge seems to hold its breath as the speckled stallion makes his way up to the peak. It’s waiting for him, he thinks; Tyr has performed his end of the exchange, but Renvari has yet to accept the claim, so the vine-strangled summit hangs in a sort of purgatory. He doesn’t feel enough like a leader yet to claim it, but this weight of expectation is making his skin crawl. It’s what Faolain wanted, he thinks, and he finds it easier to obey the feline black mare than the anticipation of the territory itself.

He reaches the highest point of the Ridge that is accessible to him, being neither a bird nor a mountain goat. The only bit of the mountain that juts out of reach is a spine of rock that cuts through the forest like a knife through a bedsheet. Everything else is low enough altitude to support plant life. Renvari’s ledge, where he stops to view the rest of the territory, is dark, rocky soil, cluttered with climbing plants and sprouts of tough grass. It overlooks most of the habitable Ridge; behind him rises the spine, and behind that, an abrupt drop into the ocean. There used to be more accessible territory on that side of the mountain, albeit steeper and more dangerous to traverse, but Ren is aware that that entire slope had fallen into the sea a few years before he had been born. It was the landslide that had tossed Faolain from the sky and battered her against the waves like a bird against glass, and its remains now served as teeth in the surf below. A fall from that side meant you had a long time in empty air to consider yourself as good as chewed up on the stones below. Ren is able to see where the mountain cuts abruptly away, but there is no way to view the base of the cliff until you’re falling down to meet it.

Renvari turns from where the slope cuts abruptly away, and views the expanse of Ridge that is still very much alive. It looks empty from here, just green, but he knows it breathes with life. His nostrils flare as he draws in the warm, humid air, thick with the scents of greenery and small creatures. Then he lifts his white-flecked chin and bellows over the treetops.

stallion | mutt | grullo snowflake sabino | 16.1hh | ridge