Romantica
Sea salt still clung to her heels, lightening the hard black surfaces to a frosted glass. The mist of mountain tops dappled the steel of her coat in loving kisses. Sand from deserts past flecked the deep green of her eyes. But no matter how far she went, she could never outrun Beqanna.
Three years have passed since the gray woman had dipped her toes into the pool of womanhood. Long gone are the gangly legs, the wild and ragged mane. She returns renew, restored. The wildness pressed itself lovingly into her heart with a white hot brand to mark it's claim upon her restless soul. She remained bound to no man, no home, no beaten path. And yet, when the nights are cold and the rain seeps just a little deeper into her skin, she remembers.
They had been so young and vulnerable when life imploded. The older version of her own skin was their mother. Stern, bitter, relentless. Prague. Her mother, consumed by the very magic that rotted her bones, had simply left them to the wolves.
But Romantica is not free of blame.
Two long years they had survived. Two long years of hunger, desperation, mouths full of filth from the lies they were fed. Two years till the granite girl broke her chains and fled into the wilderness without looking back. Tirzah would be better off without her, right? Right? It only took a few more years till the guilt in her own abandonment of her own kin to drive her through fog and fire to find the red mare.
Green eyes, like her mother's, watch from the thick wool of her forelock. Burrs and flower petals dot the mane of the pagan queen as she makes her way though the tall sea of grass, following something so familiar...something she knew so well. The meadow grass splits like the great sea as she presses through to stalk the chestnut woman. Could...could it really be...? Ears are forward and eager as she almost makes the ravenous decision to break the blind of her cover before another approaches. Another mare, blue and smudged like a House Finch's egg, approaches. Rom strains to hear the exchange of private conversation.
"Tirzah-" the word is barely above a whisper as she repeats the name. Rom goes deaf to the other as she can already feel her wild heart betraying her, exposing her. Gray limbs move her eagerly but she reins herself back. "Tirzah! " A smile blooms across her lips as she begins to move quicker, green eyes wide and watching. Would she be angry? Elated? Rom offers a quick smile to the blue roan as she begins her deceleration.
In that moment she chokes, attempting to find her manners (lost somewhere long ago in the wilderness no doubt) but can not retrieve them. "It's me, sister! It's Rom!" A wide grin is on her lips as she settles close to the pair with muscles quaking in nervousness. Emerald eyes shift shyly to the other, embarrassed to have simply barged into her sister's life (and conversation). "Hello, she says almost bashfuly to the speckled blue mare, "I'm Romantica."