hold my hand, it's a long way down to the bottom of the river
She joins them just a moment too late and the only name she catches is Raelyxs. It is a reflex when her mind dips into the chestnut colts, touching the unguarded thoughts floating just above the surface like leaves in the ripples of a pond. She catches one thought and then another, and then carefully she disentangles her mind from his, hoping he won’t have noticed the closeness. The resentment she feels for herself is immediate, like warm bile rising in her throat but she swallows it back with a cringe. She wasn’t even sure if this resentment was hers or if it was bred from the sourness of others, of those who would resent mind readers for knowing thoughts but chose not to hate those with eyes for using them to see. Eyes they understood. But Isle, she was a monster. But she takes those two thoughts anyway, anyway, and holds the first in her chest like a glowing warmth.
“Brennen is my grandfather.” She tells them quietly, lifting those brown eyes to their quiet faces to settle like dark bruises against their skin. She hopes that they will assume she had overheard them as she approached. “I will be glad to have family here, Aemar, Raelyx.” She might’ve reached out to touch Raelyx’s neck again, but she remembers how he had stiffened before and instead remains unmoving at his side.
Isle cannot help but laugh when Patchouli speaks so bluntly, and she can feel the hint of a smile tugging at her mouth when those dark eyes dance bemusedly to his face. “Yes, that must’ve been what happened to mine also, Patchouli.” She feels lighter now beside this trio, can feel her wary apprehension melting away like snow-thaw beneath the noon sun.
But then the colts ask after a warmer place than this and she can feel heat flushing her skin beneath the brown dapples of fur. Truthfully, she used Offspring to chase away the bite of this perpetual winter. It was warm and safe tucked against his side, with her mouth against his scars and his lips tracing secrets along the length of her spine. But she very much doubted this would be a reasonable solution for the trio gathered before her. Instead she shook her head with an apologetic smile and looked back to Patchouli. “The ice walls make a good windbreak if you can tuck yourself beneath them, but there isn’t any relief to find there from the cold. I think your caves would be the best choice, Patchouli.” She shrugs reflexively against the wind where it needles beneath the bay of her still sleek coat. Mostly she had tried to avoid standing out in the open where the wind scrubbed the plains and ice glistened over everything like a gleaming blue glaze. Taking a breath that hurt when it expanded her goose-pimpled flesh, she inched closer still to Raelyx, reflexively used to borrowing body heat with Offspring when the cold felt nearly unbearable. “Care to lead the way, Patchouli?”
Isle
