of the distant mountains; any

[roan]

How many years I know I'll bear
I found something in the woods somewhere

Winter digs her claws deep into the belly of the Tundra and rips away the last frail threads of warmth that tried to linger there.

Roan’s fur is thick and insulation enough against the cold so she doesn’t feel it. Snow falls on her back, sticks to her mane and melts in small cold kisses against her face. She doesn’t mind though because she is used to it. The Tundra was more her mother than anything else and one of its kings was her father. It was only natural that she was comfortable roaming the icy isolated reaches of the Tundra when not spending her time in her gray stallion’s company as Brynmor was often away now on travels to other kingdoms to do whatever it is he does, and she does not begrudge him his diplomatic duties as she keeps to the cold reaches of their home, content to spend most of her time alone.

But for the first time in her life - Roan is a little bit lonely.

The snow is not company enough for her even though she revels in the fall of it against her upturned face.

The vast quiet of the Tundra is far too quiet for her for once, becoming eerie rather than preferred.

She does not willingly seek out companionship and keeps her distance from the other stallions though they could easily smell Brynmor all over her and would know that she belongs to him. The bay roan is not sure why this sudden reluctance to sojourn forth and make friends; she can smell an influx of other mares and knows that she is not the only one there of the more delicate sex but she hesitates to seek them out. Her eyes can pick nothing out of the landscape because she doesn’t see it - it is all milk and shadows to her, and clouded swirls of blindness in her eyes that leave them almost blue-white like sheaves of ice against the snow. Still she would welcome company this day but does not know how to ask for it because she has always been content with just herself and the emptiness of the Tundra but in the wake of war, it seems more haunting than comforting these days.

Or maybe that is just because she doesn’t spend so much time at her stallion’s side because he is away on Tundra business a lot.

Roan

[isle]

hold my hand, it's a long way down to the bottom of the river

It is strange, but more and more lately Isle finds herself in the same position as Roan. For years she knew the solitude and loneliness of the meadow and her bordering forests like beloved friend. It was all she knew, and for a good long while it became the only thing she needed. But when war found them and her fragile head was filled with stray thoughts of violence and pain and treachery from the minds of perfect strangers, she had run. She had run and run until sweat slicked her skin so dark that the dapples disappeared, until white rimmed her eyes and pink filled her nose. She had run until she, quite literally, had crashed into the stoic Tundra king basking in his thoughts at the edge of the meadow. There had been something about his stillness, about the century he had lived- though this she did not know, that had kept his thoughts from clamoring into her fledgling mind-reader mind.

It was strange and senseless, but she had loved him at once.

After months of denying the strange truth that seemed to build and build within her chest, Isle finally returned with him to the snow and cold of the Tundra. But she did not take to the weather well, did not grow a thick woolly coat in time for the winter as it seeped in with snow and ice to bury the quiet mountainous kingdom. Even now, though her coat had thickened some, it was nothing compared to the fur of Roan who had lived here her whole life. Most of her heat had been stolen from embraces with her stoic king, until recently. Recently, like Brynmor, Offspring had been absent. It was kingdom duties that pulled him away, solidifying alliances and treaties, building a more solid foundation on which to grow his brotherhood. Isle knew it, and she understood, never once resenting him for the way it affected their strange relationship as she had initially worried she might. In fact she had taken advantage of the absence to hide from him the fullness of her pregnant belly as it swelled daily with their child. She was so uncertain as to how he would feel about being a father, so uncertain he would feel anything at all despite the way he had always been so open with his affections for her.

Doubt was a dangerous thing.

Her eyes alighted on the small bay mare buried like a spot of soft brown against the surrounding white and immediately she trundled forward towards her through the snow. Her progress was decidedly slow with the deep snow piled in random drifts and gullies that sometimes reached up to press cold hands against the thick swell of her belly. But the distance closed between them and she did not bother to announce herself for the way the snow crunched and swished around her, the way the wind would’ve carried her scent on ahead. When she was close enough to touch the mare, she did, with the soft of her whiskered mouth pressed to her dark shoulder in quiet greeting. This closeness had become such a reflex, such an instinct to share heat with strangers in this frozen, unfamiliar world that pressed frostbite like cruel kisses against the bay dapples of a coat that had not thickened in time. She sighs wearily, exhausted from her snowy trek across the Tundra and settles closer still, the curve of her delicate jaw brushing Roan’s shoulder. “I hope you don’t mind the company,” she says quietly, in a so voice impossibly soft, “this place seems extra lonely, lately.” The wind picks up again and her mane rattled noisily against her neck where ice clung to the ends like irregular glass beads. She hunched and exhaled stiffly, cringing until the wind subsided again and let the coarse brown hairs settle back down across her skin. “My name is Isle.”

Isle