05-10-2021, 02:03 PM
The land of old, a time before the Great Reckoning - Yanhua knew about it from his mother and sometimes, when all the world was quiet and he was in a perfect state of peaceful contemplation, he could sense the echoes of that past whenever he came to landmarks resembling the forgotten world. Those were rare occasions though, memories long forgotten by others and probably only seen by him and those horses like him who shared the gift of reaching into the past, and even then it’d only happened to Yan less than a few times.
Bardot adds onto that tally. He notices the way she glances out across the ice fields, lost to the memories Yanhua receives like small waves on the surface of a quiet pond. Places she had seen, horses she considered and then let go of when another memory came to her instead. They are like flashing curves of light in his thoughts, akin to the northern spectacle of color weaving itself across a dusky sky above them. He smiles.
“I was raised with the superstition that everything in our present was connected to our past.” He offers Bardot whimsically, the shade of blue in his gaze softening. “Our memories, the stars, the wind and life itself: connected like the roots of a tree. We may only see the branches of that product, but without the support below the surface, the tree itself is nothing. Familiarity and a sense of purpose, well …” He shrugs.
“I would say you should let your past guide you in those respects, even if you can’t see them in the present.” Yan grinned, and like Bardot had done for him he reaches down to nudge the pale, golden skin of her shoulder. It’s then that he sees the faint jaguar spots, primal and lovely along the lines of her neck, and he withdraws hesitantly from them again when the time for unfamiliar touching grows too long to be considered polite. He is a stallion after all; an honest stallion who encourages the thin lines of connection between horses wherever they’re to be found. But Bardot seems intent on another purpose and Yan isn’t the kind to push where prodding wasn’t necessary.
“What did you want for yourself back then, Bardot?” He asks her afterwards, sincere in his curiosity because it’s distracted him for the moment.
YANHUA
@[Bardot]