The ice dribbled from my chin, cold and refreshing, trickling from my whiskers in frosty spindles. The ice is refreshing, sets a little electricity into my throat, a pit of ice in my belly. It feels like an eternity that I've been travelling; a vagabond, a black feather riding the breeze. Throughout my journey I've had time to contemplate and unfortunately time to remember.
Memories are as cold and as unwelcoming as the falling snow, especially as they fall into unprotected ears. I toss my head thrice, pawing at the ivory blanket, digging more of the bank, plucking a few reeds from its depths, thoughtfully gnawing but not hungry. It can't be hungry when I remember what happened before, what happened back then, what I left behind.
They say prisons are steel cages, but sometimes you don't need four walls to be imprisoned. The chill from the snow, from the memory runs along my spine, kissing each vertebrae with a bittersweet touch. My knitted tail slaps at my hocks, my loins with s satisfying snap.
The taste of freedom was delightful, even if I was out in the snow, the cold embracing me like death's unforgiving touch. Coffee bean eyes observe the surroundings; there's just so much to look at in winter. Mountains of white, crystal glass castles of ice. and then there's me, an inky blot, a stain upon the wintry wonderland.
I catch the mare's scent before I see the silver form shift between the wintry backdrop; camouflaged and invisible to the eye. It's her scent that makes me take a step back. I remember that acrid touch, Cardinal and sweet but sick and twisted. I pique my lips and my nostrils twitch. Curiously my eyes follow her; my mother would have liked her, beautiful, elegant, flawless. Like some magnificent ice sculpture she then stands before me, a bittersweet twang in her voice, a sadistic purr from her lips.
'Cold? How can you not embrace the cold when all you've ever known is stifling imprisonment?' my voice is cool, crisp, yet feather light, just like the gentle kiss of the falling snow.
'Freedom. It often comes at a price, don't you think? Loneliness gives us time to reflect, perhaps that's not the wisest choice in the end.'
A torrent of black mane whips past me in feathered splinters of twigs and dirt as my voice gets lost like a haunting whisper in the stolen breeze.
'Nykeln. I'm Nykeln.'
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