for every tyrant, a tear for the vulnerable
in every lost soul, the bones of a miracle
She exists somewhere between the charming innocent she had been when she arrived here and the angry disillusioned thing she had become when Litotes had been taken from her. (Many said left her but she would not, though she had spat those same words at him a year ago.) Her healing has taken a circuitous route. She has found solace in lovers, particularly Clayton whose heart she has unknowingly strengthened through fires of her careless infidelities. She has grown closer not only to that tall bay stallion but also to dear Dawn, Amet, and Jah-Lilah, friends that exist in the new life she has built without Litotes. In this new existence Kensa is walled off from the self that belonged with the Lion-man, separated, and functioning like she could not in those first months without him.
There had been a time when she had constantly been expecting him to appear, to slide himself against her and fold her into a familiar embrace. Then she would remember that day in Loess with shock and pain. One day she no longer expected him and had deadened the part of herself that absently looked for him.
In the high meadow the grass is summer yellow-green. The stream babbles low and musical against the rocks, and the birch leaves whisper in the breeze that sweeps up from the valley. For Kensa her nest is full of the scents of her children, of her blood and their amniotic fluid soaked into the earth when she bore first Hildy and then Valek here. The rocks and water echo back memories of Star’s sweet laughter offset by Crynn’s wide-eyed silences. The gilded mare has tucked herself into the trees, unintentionally hidden in the camouflaging dappled shadows. Lost in thought she is slow to notice the trespasser. No one comes here but her children. No one.
Valek is dozing in the grass, his long lashed eyes fluttering with strange half-awake dreams about the sea. An unfamiliar cough wakes him with a start and the boy’s bald face pops up from the ground, and upon setting eyes on the unfamiliar stallion he gets to his feet. He is clearly his mother’s son, marked with the same gold veins along the boundary of his less prominent sabino markings. A gold stripe runs down his back, and there is a gold stripe draped over his narrow shoulders.
Kensa’s gaze is drawn to the movement of her son springing up out of the grass where he had been napping but her eyes tear away from him to land on the cremello man beyond. Her heart drops from her chest in that millisecond and there is a thunderous wave of pain that comes along when it slams itself back into her ribcage. He is beautiful and strange, there is a hardness around his mouth she does not recognize. Though her soul rises at the sight of him her mind says she does not know him anymore. Still, she cannot make herself believe he will harm her babe, and so watches, topaz eyes sharp.
Valek bristles and arches his neck, nostrils flaring wide. “This is my mother’s place.” He says, stomping a small white hoof down into the dry grass. He has is mothers boldness, and a recklessness even more alarming than her own. His little ears flick, uncertainty making him hesitate slightly, he’d never seen anyone here but his family. His voice is brave and fierce for one so small. “I’m Valek. Why are you here? Momma doesn’t let anyone come here.” Where is she anyway? Has this stranger already done something with her? His ears drop back into his short black and gold mane and there are both vulnerability and tenacity in his flashing eyes.
The chestnut mare does not like seeing her son so disturbed and almost pushes out of the trees into the clearing but when she looks at Litotes again she cannot bring herself to approach, frozen by a weakness she instantly loathes herself for.
@[litotes]
