07-30-2016, 09:57 PM
Australis did not serve the kingdom either. Even before the magic had been withdrawn from the land, before the cave was returned to nothing more than ruined stone, Australis had not participated in the initiation. It was true that for most of her life the kingdom was only servable by the male population, but there had been a window, an impossibly small window, but a window in which she could have pledged herself to this fortress of snow and ice. But she hadn’t, and she was quite certain she wouldn’t unless her father asked her to. This place, this kingdom, it was home. It was her ice and her snow, her mountains and her aching blue skies. It was her safe place, and her family’s safe place, but the people weren’t hers and she cared little for politics and war.
It was home, and it was good, but she was as much a stranger to the people as he was. It was not them she loved, not like her father did. It was the land. It was the birds and the foxes and the storms that crept up over the horizon to bury them in new snow. It was the impossible openness and sleeping so close to those strange silver stars. So yes, she was a stranger, but not to the important things.
The sound up ahead grows closer, the shuffle of feet and the quiet snuffle of cold breaths, but still she can see nothing but the open air and swirling snowflakes. Her dark eyes narrow beneath the furrow of her brow and then drop in quiet uncertainty, and only then does she notice the imprint of hooves in the snow. They aren’t hers from earlier because the wind would have wiped those away hours ago, and only after watching for a few more seconds does she realize that there are more, appearing closer and closer with every stuttering beat of her heart. She should be frightened probably, concerned by what she cannot see, but nothing has ever harmed her, especially nothing here, not in her mountains. So she remains stopped, cocking a hind leg to settle in and watch as those hoof-prints appeared closer and closer until they were right in front of her and she could see the snowflakes bending around a sinewy shape.
A second later she felt him collide with her shoulder and watched with a growing smile as the invisibility fell away to reveal a spotted palomino stallion she was certain she had never met before. She doesn’t even notice the stony way he watches her because she is too busy trying to place him, to place the scent of the tundra on his skin, of snow and ice and cold dirt. But when she looks to his face there is a frown pulling at her mouth, darkening the corners of her eyes because she is sure she has never seen him before.
But he speaks and the shadows fade from her face in the wake of a smile that unfolds easily at her mouth. I apologize. He says and she cannot help but cock her head at him and wonder at the stiffness of the words, wonder if although he apologizes, he is not sorry. “You don’t need to,” she says instead, swallowing her curiosity beneath an amused smile that somehow doesn’t turn into a laugh, “I don’t mind running into strangers.” But then he speaks again and that smile, completely unaffected by the way he grimaced at her, reached up to soften the corners of her dark eyes. “That’s a coincidence, because I couldn’t see you either.”
She laughs, finally, a bell-like sound and then reaches across for a second to touch her nose against his. “I’m Australis.” When she pulls back it is to look at him again, her dark face soft and bright beneath the watery yellow light of a sleepy sun. “Do you live here?”