05-13-2017, 07:45 PM
Winter had fallen fast and hard over Beqanna. Alayaya had waltzed in on the last glorious day of spring, and was barely across the border when the weather had turned. Now, though it felt like little time at all had passed, the world was a monochrome of snow. A heavy storm had passed over them the previous night, and in the open spaces the drifts rose several feet, swept by cold, groaning winds into ripples and dunes, building up against the wide trunks of ancient oaks and elms. The treelines were obscurely shaped, grounded clouds. Heavy snow piled over bare boughs and dragged them toward the earth. Out in the Field and in the Meadow the snow lay like frozen waves, bunched into peaks and valleys by the funneled winds, some of them as high as chest or hip, and certainly taller than Alayaya.
As the day had broken this morning it had been as though the world was engulfed, smothered, and erased – the snow was undisturbed by the feet of horses or other scurrying things, who had taken shelter away from the open spaces. The air was thick, and the world was unnaturally quiet, missing the songs of summer creatures and the voices of people. The deep, bone biting cold and the prospect of wading through feet of treacherous snow that morning had kept most of them away in the morning. Even now, after the noon peak of the sun, there were only a few figures to be seen, wending their careful way between the drifts, or pausing in places the wind had swept nearly bare to try to dig up a meal.
The sun was high above them, but distant, not sharing its warmth with the plane below. Alayaya had been upon the meadow since the shadows had faded into its edges at dawn. It was not apparent immediately where she had been before that. She spent the following several hours testing the strength of the snow dunes, skipping her feet up slopes with greater daring – sinking to her ankles, or her hock and then delighting in disturbing the pristine surface as much as possible as she extracted herself again. She had enjoyed the peace or this winter desert almost to herself, and if there had been eyes to observe her, it might have been remarkable that she seemed to never tire of her sport, even without an audience. By the time noon rolled around her mane and tail were matted with snow, and her skin was dangerously damp, but there was fearless hedonism in her eyes.
Scythe was one of those intrepid (or self-hating) souls this afternoon in the open of the Meadow. Alayaya’s eyes caught his head across a wide drift of snow, the dreaded black tendrils of his mean and forelock standing out obscenely against the bright, unending white, his breath rising in gentle clouds. She tipped her face, an almost shrewd curiosity, comical for its maturity in the guise of her impish face as she watched him. His head and neck reflected in the wide blue of her eyes just as it was against the sky on the other side, unique, brooding. There was a swift light of mischief upon the delicate features and, she sized up the snow between the two of them. She took no steps, but with the agility and unflagging energy of her ilk she leapt upon the drift, poised as though to climb across it. Suddenly, cutting through the stillness, there was a scream of laughter and a heavy crunch of body on snow and frozen earth. A cloud of light flaking snow rose into the air as she fell, crashing through the flaky, unpacked snow and half-burying herself within it a few feet from where the stallion had been standing – doing whatever it was that adults did to kill time without playing games. Giggling, she blinked bright blue eyes up at his tall frame, a patchy blanket of snow across her side, her legs hidden somewhere beneath her.
She moved her feet a little, and the mass of snow shifted indistinctly, but she made no true progress from her new position. So instead, with childlike, deliberate unconcern, she simply stretched her neck with exaggerated poise and made a show of gently laying her head into the bright, glittering dune. She was playing the lady reclining, and peered up at him, the girlish laughter gone, replaced by a haughty appraisal that was two parts pretend, but one small part coy assurance that was out of place on a child.
“What are you doing here?” she asked him, the imperial tone well suited to her expression, but at absurd odds with her trapped figure in the pile of snow.
As the day had broken this morning it had been as though the world was engulfed, smothered, and erased – the snow was undisturbed by the feet of horses or other scurrying things, who had taken shelter away from the open spaces. The air was thick, and the world was unnaturally quiet, missing the songs of summer creatures and the voices of people. The deep, bone biting cold and the prospect of wading through feet of treacherous snow that morning had kept most of them away in the morning. Even now, after the noon peak of the sun, there were only a few figures to be seen, wending their careful way between the drifts, or pausing in places the wind had swept nearly bare to try to dig up a meal.
The sun was high above them, but distant, not sharing its warmth with the plane below. Alayaya had been upon the meadow since the shadows had faded into its edges at dawn. It was not apparent immediately where she had been before that. She spent the following several hours testing the strength of the snow dunes, skipping her feet up slopes with greater daring – sinking to her ankles, or her hock and then delighting in disturbing the pristine surface as much as possible as she extracted herself again. She had enjoyed the peace or this winter desert almost to herself, and if there had been eyes to observe her, it might have been remarkable that she seemed to never tire of her sport, even without an audience. By the time noon rolled around her mane and tail were matted with snow, and her skin was dangerously damp, but there was fearless hedonism in her eyes.
Scythe was one of those intrepid (or self-hating) souls this afternoon in the open of the Meadow. Alayaya’s eyes caught his head across a wide drift of snow, the dreaded black tendrils of his mean and forelock standing out obscenely against the bright, unending white, his breath rising in gentle clouds. She tipped her face, an almost shrewd curiosity, comical for its maturity in the guise of her impish face as she watched him. His head and neck reflected in the wide blue of her eyes just as it was against the sky on the other side, unique, brooding. There was a swift light of mischief upon the delicate features and, she sized up the snow between the two of them. She took no steps, but with the agility and unflagging energy of her ilk she leapt upon the drift, poised as though to climb across it. Suddenly, cutting through the stillness, there was a scream of laughter and a heavy crunch of body on snow and frozen earth. A cloud of light flaking snow rose into the air as she fell, crashing through the flaky, unpacked snow and half-burying herself within it a few feet from where the stallion had been standing – doing whatever it was that adults did to kill time without playing games. Giggling, she blinked bright blue eyes up at his tall frame, a patchy blanket of snow across her side, her legs hidden somewhere beneath her.
She moved her feet a little, and the mass of snow shifted indistinctly, but she made no true progress from her new position. So instead, with childlike, deliberate unconcern, she simply stretched her neck with exaggerated poise and made a show of gently laying her head into the bright, glittering dune. She was playing the lady reclining, and peered up at him, the girlish laughter gone, replaced by a haughty appraisal that was two parts pretend, but one small part coy assurance that was out of place on a child.
“What are you doing here?” she asked him, the imperial tone well suited to her expression, but at absurd odds with her trapped figure in the pile of snow.
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