08-09-2016, 05:06 PM
i don't love you;
but i always will.
Her heart calms at the sound of her name thrown back to her from an eager throat; her friend is alive and well, and she could not say why entirely the vanner had become so vastly important to her, but she had. Fay was her anchor to feeling something other than the general apathy and scorn that sizzled in her. Something about the mountainous little mare quelled the fire in her, and Riva knew that she needed that at times, to stop the seething mass of hate from eating her up.
It is a cancer that she knows she will never be free of.
She laughs as her friend storms across the earth, mighty and massive. Fay slides to a stop before Riva, showering her in a spray of soil that pebbles her skin. She is about to laugh but is too surprised when Fay’s nose darts out impulsively to nuzzle her neck. For a moment, she is too shocked to do anything but stand there with her mouth agape and then slowly, she returns the gesture a tad bit shyly in the wake of her friend’s embarrassment. Eventually, Riva’s head comes to rest upon her friend’s back as she sighs and explains;
“What happened as I understand it, is that some kingdom launched a raid against another kingdom and the entirely of Beqanna raised up in revolt. Well, okay not the entirety but the magic in her did I guess. A manifestation of the magic came to each kingdom and told them that the land had had enough and the magic tied to each kingdom was going to be taken back, leaving each kingdom stripped of their special rites and privileges. Things like the initiations and scars and small gifts to designate us as members of our respective kingdoms are gone now, we are as we might have always been meant to be - just horses.”
She pauses to suck in a breath before talking of Lagertha because it still stings to know the gray mare is gone, not dead - but gone. How can she talk of it? It sits in her throat like an angry sore lump that refuses to go away but Fay eases that pain, or the smell of her does and the feel of her broad back beneath Riva’s small head does. “Lagertha fought in the raid on the Deserts’ side, but they lost and then the Deserts flooded and all the royal family and Lagertha have been spirited away to god knows where and she just left us.” Riva doesn’t mean to sound spiteful towards their once-Queen but she cannot help the note of hurt that lingers in the end of the sentence, and maybe it wasn’t just Lagertha’s leaving that hurt, but it stirred up old memories from Riva’s childhood and that hurt more.
Riva