| Board : | |
| Author : | |
| Subject : | |
| Date : | |
|
|| You're browsing the Chronicles of the Winds when a small || || bundle catches your eye. Tacked up among the other papers|| || is a sprig of rosemary, tied to a folded page with a bit || || of twine. The scent hits you before you even touch it. || || Pulling the page free, you're careful not to crush the || || rosemary as you begin to read... I knew a horse once when I was younger. When I was a girl, there was a herd that'd graze about a half day's walk from where my pack would winter, and on the days we weren't hunting I'd go out and watch 'em. I was careful at first. Kept my distance, the way you do with anything wild even when you're half-wild yourself. After a while, one of them started coming closer'n the rest. A dun mare, she was. With a coat the color of dry grass gone gold in late summer, with a dark stripe running down her spine and darker patches on her legs like shadows in the grass. I'd bring her leaves. Not the ones near her own grazing ground, that she already knew. I wanted to bring her something different. so I'd walk out further than I needed to, into country that didn't smell like home, just to find something new to give her. When she'd take them from my hand, I felt connected. Like she and me belonged. I never rode her. Thought about it once but decided against it. Men ride horses after they've already taken everything else from them. The open ground, the herd, the choosing of a mate, the choosing of a direction. Saddle's usually the last thing taken, after all the rest is already gone. She still had her freedom and I wasn't going to be the one who started taking it away. Guess because I was raised by wolves, maybe I kind of understand what it is to run in a pack. To move because the ones around you move, to need the pack's eyes as much as your own. Wolves don't run from things. They decide whether to fight or to let something pass. A horse is built the other way. Running's the first instinct, before anything else. Before trust, before hunger. So when she'd stand still for me instead of bolting, that wasn't nothing. That was her deciding, every time, that I was safe. I haven't seen her since I left for the city. I don't know if she's still out there. I've been trying to find her again, and maybe I never will. But I know this is the animal I'd choose even if I never find her. She was the first creature I loved that wasn't family. Not pack, not kin, just, you know, someone I chose that chose me back. Kiri | |