drown my sorrow, no tomorrow; anyone

[hickory]

Blind and whistling just around the corner
And there's a wind that is whispering something

Strong as hell but not hickory rooted

There is a feeling inside her, like ancient cities crumbling. Pompeii once felt a rumbling, once were witness to a sky turning black and the air turning to ash. Buildings collapsed and walls fall to pieces.
She is ancient. She is collapsing.
She is supposed to be a structured thing, and there is never supposed to be a rumbling or a sky turned black.
But nature – and this bay mare – care fuck-all for supposed to.
She lets the things crumble. Lets the world end. Because maybe it was always supposed to be this way. Maybe that stupid, convoluted history was always meant to end with her.

They have their tree. Their memorial. That is enough. She is not their memorial.
She is Hickory.

She falls against her.
(The theme, again – crumbling, falling, collapse. But already she is rebuilding or rebuilt.)
Loam is there to bear the momentary crush of weight, and then Hickory rights herself, and instead touches her with reverence, bold in her exploration, no longer timid or doubting.
She’d spent years wondering what she would do if she came upon Loam again, and now that such an opportunity is here, she is loath to waste it.
I missed you, says Loam, and ah, she thrills at the words and the way they send shivers up her backbone.
“I missed you too,” she says, open and fraught, “I wasn’t sure that I’d see you again. I thought of you often. Of things I wanted to say to you.”

hickory