[open] could have followed my fears all the way down

[Warlight]

Warlight

Her body is still raw. The smooth trot that carries her north across the Riverlands is agony, but it comforts her misplaced-pride. Mixed with the pain there is some satisfaction. She believes she hides it well, even if there are none other than the woodland creatures to see her. But she covers the miles in this unnecessary exercise of will-power until the fingers of cold wind nearly remove every whisp of Tephra's scent that tries to cling to her.   

She needed the bite of cold air in her face.
She needed to get away from her child.
His child.

There was no true winter in her new home, and the heart of the mountain-girl she had once been aced for the bitter cold sometimes. Sometimes, when she was inclined to be discontent, when she felt like fighting the world, when everything anyone said just made her angry.

When that bitter restlessness worked it's way into her bones and she just wanted to scream. But, she doesn't scream, she runs. She runs even though her labor-wounds had not healed, and her heart skips a beat every time her gait hitches and her side splits.

Maybe she would break something in there, maybe she would never be able to take part in the beautiful process of procreation again. 

She blinks. Returning to the present and realizing she is on the edge of the meadow. The leopard-skin mare works to smooth her mouth out of the grimace it had taken on. The Face, as someone called it. But she came here to get away from all of that, and her nearly black eyes scan the snow-heavy clouds it is a little easier to remember she is not there, and no one needs her here.

But she is not alone - not that she wanted to be. Movement catches her attention and her eyes meet those of a stranger. Maybe though, the stranger wished she was alone, as the impact of their meeting gazes halts her progress. Warlight smiles slightly, the tall crown on her antlers tipping back. It is a crooked smile that's neither innately friendly or sinister, just something that happened when circumstances suddenly changed. She had always thrived in the spaces between order.

"Don't let me stop you," she calls into the cold wind that swirls between them, "I'm just here to..." her answer halt for a moment as she suddenly realizes she doesn't have a simple word for why she's here, and if she did she isn't sure she would use it. When her brain fills the space for her, she hides another grimace sd she hears the words that find their way out "... see the snow"

— soul as sweet as blood red jam —