Hiraeth [The Hardcore Quest]

III: The Lake Needs to Eat Just Like All Living Things

    "Hello," I greeted quietly, as if I were afraid of spooking a wild beast into flight. In truth, it could do nothing. The horse only stared at me. "Can I help you?"

    I met her in a field. I was just passing through, not paying mind to any of the wildlife around me. I passed a herd of wild horses, all with their heads bowed as they chewed on the vegetation. But she saw me, she followed me, and now here we were.

    The horse brayed and stepped closer to me, slowly, as though I were the wild beast. As though if she made the wrong move, I would run. I probably would.

    One step. Two steps. Three. Then, suddenly, she was in front of me, looking down. Despite myself, I smiled. The breeze was cool, and I could smell cinnamon in the autumn air. Tentatively, I reached my hand out. She flinched only slightly, but soon she leaned to my touch, and I gently stroked her muzzle. The horse sighed, blowing hot air across my arm. My face hurt from smiling.

    "Look at you," I found myself saying. "Aren't you something, huh?"

    She nickered, and I chuckled. Her pelt was a warm brown, dimpled with specks of cumulus clouds. I scratched under her chin, and she neighed.

    "Wow," I breathed, bewildered. Part of me felt as though I were dreaming, as if any second now, I would wake up. A bumble bee buzzed past, resting in a flower before hurrying off. The breeze tickled the tall grass against my thighs. There was no way a moment in life could be this tranquil.

    But it was. And I loved it. For once in my life, I loved it.

    "Cinnamon." It came to me naturally, I'm not sure how. At the name, the horse opened her eyes, kindness shaded by her long eyelashes, and I inhaled deeply. "My name is Don."

    She walked closer to me, and I embraced the horse. She was warm, and her black mane brushed the side of my cheek comfortingly. Something inside me stirred, and for once, pain couldn't reach me. It was quiet, but not the kind of silence that stifled the cold and drew the air from your breath. It was the kind of quiet in between wakefulness and slumber, where everything felt real and like a dream at once.

    We walked on together, and I told her things I'd never told anyone before.

___________________

In between the fighting to continue walking and the drastic change of fields to tundra, I began to shrink.

    Cinnamon must have felt it, for she stuck close to me, albeit with a moment of hesitation. She was cold, and so was I. But I kept going, I kept walking. What else was there to do?

    When my eyes weren't trained on the expanse of snow beyond me, I was buried in my map, following the trail of footsteps echoing across the paper. When I could no longer walk, Cinnamon carried me, but I could tell she was tired, too. Among the flurries of ice and the sleepless nights by the dying campfire, I begged to not wake up the next morning. Then I would remember Cinnamon, and I realized I couldn't leave her alone out here. Not after she'd stuck with me for so long.

    It happened the day before I found them.

    It stopped snowing, and so I reveled in the silence of the tundra, shaking in my armor and huffing out into the cold air. My ears stung and my eyes watered, but I kept walking. The snow beneath me crunched softly beneath my boots. I was not built for this type of weather, and so I suffered, on the edge of breaking every second.

    "We'll cut them off," I promised Cinnamon. She stepped warily across the landscape, as if the world could shatter beneath us at any second. "Then we'll get them and go home. Done and done. Get out of this hellscape."