01-07-2016, 02:45 PM
She has never imagined the possibility of having her vision restored; it simply has not occurred to her that this could happen and she has never once harbored a wish to see all the things she cannot. Roan has compensated in other ways - her sense of smell is not quite super but far more advanced than a normal horse’s sense of smell should be and her hearing is unbelievably accurate as well. If she dreams, she dreams the way she sees - blindly, in black and white, so the loss of color and life has never bothered her. Then again, Roan was too rooted in the here and the now to give in much to flights of fancy and that’s just what dreams were. In their time apart, she has explored pieces of the Tundra that were once familiar to her and while never quite forgotten, the lay of the land had changed little but enough for her not to be familiar with every ridge and hollow though much of the land was flat - deceptively so, but flat enough all the same. The little roan mare usually comes back from these jaunts shivering and exhilarated to the point that her face shines with happiness at the progress she makes. She is committed to knowing the faultlines and fractures of the permafrost as well as they do - the bachelors that live here, and while she has smelled them (like the hulking King’s scent and Bryn’s), she has kept herself apart for a time, too eager to enjoy the feel of the cold wind on her face and the snow falling on her back.
Too soon though and spring melts a good portion of the snow; they can eat more than lichen and moss and she enjoys mouthfuls of good grass that has lain beneath snow all winter long. Some of the rivers have cracked their skin of ice and she has sipped of their pure coldness. But in the end, despite having kept busy, Roan has started to feel like there is something missing - him, and she knows it is the stallion she first met upon her return to the Tundra. It is convenient then that they look for one another and she hears him call to her with a loud happy whinny that she answers rather happily and loudly herself. But he comes to her with a pant and she is immediately concerned, poking her nose at his shoulder and asking, “Are you okay?”
(Roan cannot help the way her heart thumps faster in her bay roan breast at the way he says her name, like it’s the only important thing his lips can shape.)
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