The Soul Riders ~ The Circle of Aideen

Chapter Ten

The monster in Jorvik City had took a while to blow over. Mainly six or seven weeks. It was all over the news: of how Mr. Anwir and his company were nothing, but a group of horse thieves and abusers; how Mr. Anwir used the horses as his deadly experiment and had stolen horses; a pair of girls and a small family had saved the horses; and how the same pair of girls and a experimented horse saved the city from a transformed gorilla monster. Sasha wanted to get away for a while and returned exploring Jorvik once again. Sasha and Stormchaser had helped Hugh Shepherd opened the Rescue Ranch on South Hoof and took care of a young colt named Balder, who is now healed and running free with the herd again with his mother. Sasha had helped Farrah with her uniquely made deliveries in Valedale and brought them to all over Jorvik, including in the city. Sasha had been training as a Jorvik ranger of Mistfall and had explored the woods with Rania.
But since winter was coming, Sasha was riding her dapple bay pangare North Swedish mare with a white spot in shape of a white rose named Rosefeather, but her nickname is Rosie. Sasha and Rosie were both exploring the Valley of the Hidden Dinosaur. The area is truly icy and cold, which is one of the main reasons Sasha had brought Rosie with her today instead of Stormchaser. The last thing she needed was a restless horse with a cold, so she rather not risk her chances again.
A while back, Sasha had used her fixing skills and magic to reopen the trails into the Valley of the Hidden Dinosaur with the help of Elizabeth Sunbeam (Sasha was pretty surprised to see that Elizabeth was actually quite rebellious, bold, and tough like Alex). But unfortunately, Stormchaser had accidentally caught a cold, so Sasha had to bring him back into their home stable for him to recover and brought Rosie along to explore the valley. Sasha was startled of reuniting with a very cold Nic Stoneground and she started to help him in anyway she can. She helped find a intelligent scientist and vet in the valley, healed the scientist's older brother, fixed up Nic Stoneground's hot air balloon, and making new discoveries everyday. The campsite now has a small restaurant, a outdoors vet's office, a outdoor shopping market, and a race on the frozen Valedale Lake.
But anyways, Sasha rode Rosefeather on the trails and looked around with confusion. Earlier today, they had saw a wild and panicked light gray dun Fjord mare with a mysterious look in her eyes and unique riding equipment with no rider had came across their path and seemed to be asking for their help when Sasha and Rosie were both taking pictures of the angles, calculating the angles, and mapping the area by the helicopter crash.
They had followed the poor mare into the Valley of the Frozen Mist. Sasha was surprised to see frozen grass and brambles, there's a line tree forest and another forest with leafless trees, past the leafless forest kind of looks like a few icy and snowy caves, by the mountainsides there seemed to be geysers, and what seemed to be massive icy pillars by the leafless forest. Sasha shivered slightly from the cold as she and Rosie galloped after the wild horse.
"Um... Rosie?" Sasha's mare glanced up at Sasha. "Did you see where that mare had went?"
Rosie shook her head with a snort, a bit of wet mist came from the mare's nose. But Sasha sighed softly and looked around desperately, "I hope that mare is around here. The mare seemed pretty worked up."
That's when Sasha heard a wild neigh and out of nowhere, the frightened Fjord mare had reappeared again and was rearing again. Sasha could see the whites in the wild mare's eyes as she dismounted Rosie and had calmed down the frightened mare. The mare was shivering as if she was cold and was blowing hard as she met Sasha's worried eyes.
Sasha remounted Rosie and they broke into a gallop to follow the wild mare up to a hill. They both came to a stop and Sasha noticed that the mare was looking down at a huge slope in a bigger pile of snow than usual. Sasha followed the mare's gaze and gasped in surprise when she saw a white dun colt with black markings on his knees and a lasso wrapped around his neck was trapped underneath the huge pile of snow.
The foal, probably a reckless colt, seemed to be breathing fine and there's doesn't seemed to be any physical injuries on the foal, but he seemed to be too tired to get up from his trouble. Sasha sighed again and made Rosie walked down the hill to help the foal, the mare followed behind them.
Sasha dismounted Rosie and started to help dig out the colt, who looked up at her with surprise and confusion. After Sasha was down digging the colt out of the snow, the colt stumbled out of the snow, blinking in confusion and relief. The colt whinnied excitedly as he stumbled and walked towards his relieved looking mother. The mother horse started nuzzling her colt and her colt started licking his mother mare. Sasha found it pretty adorable of the small reunion.
But Sasha felt worried. If the mare was saddled, where was the rider of the mare? The rider must of been trying to find the colt when the avalanche had happened and they both gotten buried in the snow. Sasha let the young colt sniffed her and allowed Rosie to distract the colt as Sasha checked on the colt's long and graceful legs. There was a few scratches on his legs, but it doesn't look too deep, so he'll be fine. It seemed that the colt had gotten himself tangled up in one of the bramble bushes before the avalanche had happened.
Maybe the mother mare's rider had went out to help the colt, but they were both caught in the avalanche. The mother mare had gotten spooked and tossed off her rider before she had ran off. Sasha realized that she was getting tired of calling the horse "the mare" and the foal "the colt." Sasha looked at the mare, who seemed to be getting restless again, she had gotten up and found a strange bronze pendant on the western breast collar that has the name Snowbird.
"So your name's Snowbird?" Sasha asked the mare. The mare, or rather Snowbird, nodded with a tilted head with a intelligent gleam in her brown eyes. "Then what's your colt's name then?"
Snowbird singled her head towards the saddle bags on her back, making Sasha grimaced slightly. Sasha usually hates going through other people's things, but some things just have to be done to help others in need. Sasha found some food for both human and horse, a bag filled with coins, a bag filled with herbs, a few scrolls, a two ink bottles, some quills, and that's when Sasha had found a book.
Sasha opened the book, feeling confused of why she felt familiar with the language written in the book. She soon read out loud, "Dear Diary, it is Denahi again. Snowbird's curious colt, Blizzard, had escaped again from the pasture. He's part of my responsibility and now I must find him with his worried mother again. But unfortunately, Blizzard's tracks had led us to the Icengate, the great portal between worlds of us Kallters and them Jorvegians. Oh dear, now we're going to be in bigger trouble than before. From Denahi."
Sasha looked up at Snowbird with confusion. The confused look on Sasha's face quickly fell as a warm gust of wind had blown through, making her stumble back. A strange feeling filled her as she rested her hand on Snowbird beside her for balance, before she lurched forward.
When she looked up, she was no longer in the snowy avalanched area with the horses behind her.
Instead...everything was blurry, glowing in a soft purple-blue tone around her. She tried to take a step, but it felt like she was walking through some sort of thick liquid that was slowing her movements. She reached out, curling her hand on the snow to try and propel herself into the room when a figure on horseback rushed past her and out onto the covered-free trail. It looked like a young man, with dark hair and olive skin in furry white and blue-highlighted clothes like an Alaskan. The sound of the colt's crying, she could hear it, she could see that the young grayish-white colt was tangled in a bramble bush. She turned her head to follow the sight of the rider and the horse as they approached the colt and gotten him out of his sticky situation, only turning back when she heard an echoing sound of what sounded like the horse's relieved whinny.
She nearly gasped at what she saw.
Then out of nowhere Sasha heard the sound of hard rumbling from above them and before she knew it the avalanche had came rushing from the mountains and down towards them. Sasha felt herself fighting the urge to mount Rosie and getting themselves out of there, because she knew it had already happened and it's in a vision. The horse panicked and accidentally threw off her rider, the rider tried to stop his horse, but the horse was already out of earshot. Sasha watched in horror as the rider and the foal get swept up in the avalanche. The foal had managed to stop himself from the top of a boulder, but the rider was down from the avalanche and over the cliff. Sasha was horrified to see such a sight. Snowbird nudged Sasha with her muzzle and Sasha hesitantly mounted the mare without touching the reins.
As Sasha rode Snowbird, she realized that they were going through the collapsing snow like a pair of ghosts of the past. When they stopped at the ledge of the the ravine, Sasha saw a unconscious young man around her age on a ledge. Sasha dismounted Snowbird and looked down at the ledge with worry.
She snapped her head to the left and saw Rosie, clearly in color, staring at her in concern. Letting out a shuddering breath, she quickly mounted Rosie, started to lean against Rosie's neck as she began breathing heavily, trying to calm down the tremors from whatever that was had left her. Sasha looked around warily, startled halfway out of her wits. But when she looked down at the ledge, the young man still laid there and was now barely awake.
"Snowbird," whispered Sasha to the mare, who stood next Sasha and the two younger horses. "Is that where Denahi is at? On the ledge of the ravine?"
Snowbird nodded with a soft and worried whinny as she looked down of the ravine that had Denahi laid on the ledge. Snowbird neighed a bit louder, catching the attention of of her rider. When the rider looked up at them, Sasha felt her breath caught in her throat.
Denahi was a young man. He seemed to be one or two years older than Sasha. The first things Sasha noticed were his hair and his eyes. He had black hair that was a little messy and with a gold bead on his right strand, but really attractive-looking. His eyes were warm chocolate brown. His facial features were chiselled and perfect; high cheekbones that were well-defined, a slender nose, and his lean muscles reminded her of an athletic jockey. His clothes were a furry grayish-white, like the Alaskan wolf-themed that Sasha had seen from Alaskan stores.
"Denahi!" Sasha called down to the young man. "Are you alright?"
At first, he didn't respond and it started to make Sasha feel a little worried about him. But he looked up and seemed to be surprised to see a teenage girl on an unknown horse next to Snowbird and Blizzard.
"Xha!?" called back Denahi, still looking surprised at them and Sasha was unsure of what language he was speaking. "Li-th Xha? Aha... Kallth? Eng? Klingon? Jorviskha?"
"Yes, I speak Jorvegian." Sasha never felt so confused before. Who was this fellow? He seems quite familiar in Sasha's eyes, but she's not sure why. "My name is Sasha and this is Rosefeather."
Denahi looked up at her with a hopeful sparkle in his deep brown eyes as he looked up at her. Sasha smiled down at him as she dismounted Rosie and started to get her mountain climbing supplies out of the saddle bags, she replaced her cowgirl hat with a black climbing helmet. She had put on her climbing harness and attached it to the long roped carabineer onto the harness before putting one rope around Rosie's neck and the other rope around Snowbird's neck. Sasha attached the spare harness with the spare rope.
"Rosie, Bird, if you both felt a tug on the rope, start pulling," Sasha instructed her horse. Rosie nodded understandingly and looked ready to help her rider in anyway she could possibly can.
Sasha started to climb down backwards, she had kept her hands on the rope as she carefully bounced down towards the ledge. After she landed on the same ledge as Denahi, he looked up at her from his corner and his shivering was still strong.
"Denahi?" whispered Sasha to Denahi.
He suddenly looked up at her and felt stunned as he said, "G-g-r-reetings. I-I h-had m-managed t-to m-m-master y-your l-language. I-I m-ean n-no h-harm. Y-you and y-your p-people d-don't h-have t-to w-w-worry."
"Thank you my friend." Sasha stole a swift glance at the ravine below them. There's no way that the two of them will survive that fall, including if one of them are halfway frozen. "But let's do our meetings and greetings later."
Sasha got out her spare harness from her backpack and gently put it on Denahi, she attached it to the other rope. She was concerned when their skins touched, his skin was cold as ice! She felt herself blushed when she had realized that their faces were only a few inches apart. Denahi had also blushed, but Sasha had tugged on both of the ropes and the two mares both started to pull Denahi up from the ledge. Sasha watched on as Denahi went up first before Sasha had started to follow him, she wanted to make sure if Denahi had made it up safely and she'll be ready to help him if he gets stuck.
Once he safe was safe with the horses, Sasha tugged on her rope and Rosie started to help her rider make the dangerous climb. Sasha took a deep breath and almost slipped a few times, but Rosie pulled on strongly without a complaint. Once Sasha had made it, she hugged Rosie and Bird before taking the ropes off from their necks and gotten the harnesses off from both her and Denahi. Blizzard whinnied excitedly and reared excitedly, but he became silent as he began to nuzzle Denahi with Bird. Once she was done, she gently shook Denahi's shoulder with a worried look in her eyes.
"Come on, let's take you that cave over there." Sasha helped Denahi onto Bird before she mounted Rosie and led Blizzard. They all rode towards the cave that was in the mountain and by the edge of the pine tree forest. Sasha and Rosie led the others into the cave after checking if the cave was being used or not. Luckily, it wasn't being used.
Sasha dismounted Rosie and placed a blanket on the ground before helping Denahi onto the blanket. Sasha placed a wool blanket over his shoulders. Bird laid down next to her rider, while Sasha gathered some dry woods to make a fire. After making fireplace, Sasha had managed to light up a fire with sheer luck.
"Thank you," said Denahi quietly after he started to warm up. Sasha smiled at Denahi as she began to share some of the horse feed with Bird and Blizzard. "Pardon me, but what is your name?"
"My name is Sasha," Sasha said with a warm smile.
"That's a beautiful name for a girl like you," said Denahi quietly with a smile.
Sasha felt herself blushing and hoped that the light from the fire was covering up her blush. She never felt so flustered before. She felt a familiar gentle warmth spreading through herself, she enjoys this feeling.
Sasha sat down next to Denahi, starting to feel more uncertain than before, even when their shoulders started touching and she placed a hand on top of his. She started to play with her hair, Rosie snorted and looked towards the entrance of the cave with a worried look in her eyes. Sasha knew what was wrong, a nasty blizzard was coming. It seemed that they will be camping out now.