Recall the Season Gone

By Firefeet

“By Alma – it comes to this point that I loathe the snow.”

“I remember just the start of this season you saying that you could ‘Outlast even the snowy peaks to the north’, you would receive the snow as cordially as you would receive me!” Conn chuckled as he spoke, and he kept his voice far softer than the dun mare he slowly kept pace with. Ra snorted at him, and she gave her companion a once over, before shaking her head.

“I never said such a thing. Fool’s twaddle, lies – Conn, your mind, I do believe you are losing it.” she muttered, and he grinned beside her despite her sudden sour face. “I cannot help it that I cite a fool in her tripe – I merely repeat what I hear.” He said, and her jaw dropped and she jerked her face to him.

They stopped in the snowy clearing, making their way towards the set of tracks they’d left hours ago – starting on what could have been their hundredth circle of the snow burdened valley since the sun had set. Conn’s ears pinned back only momentarily as he glanced from Ra and then towards his tangerine toes. When she did not speak, a rarity for his swift tongued, sluggish minded friend the olive stallion rolled his ears delicately forward and leaned towards her.

“I didn’t mean to –“

Quickly, and without much warning a grin pulled her dusky lips and she nipped him across the neck. It was only a playful nip, and when he shied – surprised by her abrupt movements she followed up to keenly shoulder her partner. “I know you did not Conn! You’re in high spirits, I can feel it – what is it that’s warmed your blood so? A herb mayhap, something you’ve found to eat? You must go halves with me; I tire of the aches in my joints and the drudgery of my mind!” she badgered him, and he was at first hesitant in his laugher, but then he relaxed and shook out his ginger mane. It scattered all across his sage neck, and into his blue eyes before he tossed his head, the tendrils of his forelock fell over his horn and behind one long ear.

It drew Ra to snort and giggle, and he laughed himself before shouldering her and they set off at a jog as if to make up for lost time in their hike. “We must be quiet; we are among the few who do not get to sleep the nights! You wouldn’t want to wake Cryss, would you now?” he hissed, and this elicited an almost violent snort from his blue maned friend, as he had known it would. It made him smile in spite of himself.

“The great, hairy, ancient badger – I wished his jaws would freeze together in the chill this season and decline to open for long after the spring thaw. I grew confident that I might’ve been granted this one desire to out-burn them all, but I saw him just this morning at the watercourse – splitting the ice for Hunt and Vim – and he spoke.” Ra chattered at his side, softly now. “And what did he say?” Conn chuckled, and she snorted flippantly.

“He looked ‘pon me with that opaque old eye of his, and I saw him squint and frown at me and he opened his mouth, took a great breath like a great dragon – I thought quite sure for a moment he would spit fire, I was frightened a moment for the safety of his admirers, for they were so close to him,” she paused a moment, as Conn laughed quietly.

“Hist – I think I hear him approaching now, he must be listening!” he teased, and she jolted as if struck or stung before laughing. “He said, and he did not say it to me, he said it to his companions as if I were not there to hear him, he said – ‘I think it best we go downstream, I do not like this bend much at this point. The scenery angers me.’” She said, and Conn at her side began to laugh. It made her laugh, nearly as hard as she had laughed earlier in the day, following her shared encounter.

She sobered quickly, and nudged her friend gently as he continued to laugh. “He’s so mean!” he hissed fanatically, and the sentiment drew her to giggle about it a bit more. “If I were so beastly I would be just as foul I do believe.” She whispered, and the pair tittered a few moments longer, before again Ra bumped her friend.

“You’ve never told me!” she accused him quietly, and Conn’s ears splayed briefly as he gave her a wild eyed, confused sort of grimace that made her snort. “What?” he asked tentatively, and she shook her head. “What keeps your spirits so high, Conn? What secret stores have you?” she pressed, and he was confused a moment more, before he realized what she was on about with a soft “Oh.”

He laughed a little, and stepped quietly over the heap of snow they’d knocked from the boughs of the overhanging tree earlier in the night. “I’ve nothing I’m hiding, it is nothing I’m holding!” he insisted, and she gave him a fierce look. “Then why does the cold not hold you down as it does me?” she asked him, and a smile pulled at his cream lips. “Just ideas, musings I hold dear.” He told her delicately, as if it shamed him and straight away, with the slight reluctance in his voice she was fascinated.

“What ideas?” she asked, leaning in close to him to escape the wind that assaulted the duo, the cold that nipped and invaded her skin and attacked her bones. “Do you remember the Sea?” he faltered briefly before he asked her, as if scared she might think him silly. When she did not at first answer, he glanced sidelong to his friend almost nervously, as if she might think something bad of him.

“Of course I remember the sea!” she provided at last, and she brightened up a bit at his side. “Which trip?” she asked sardonically, and he had to grin with the same humor that laced her husky voice. She had a deep voice to most of the mares he had known, and though he would never say this to her, for he knew it would set her to worrying it was a trait he admired. The husk was present most often in their private conversations and her voice rose in pitch in dealings with others – and though this trait was endearing she would worry herself hairless over it.

He smiled softly, laughing. “All of them, each trip – do you remember the sand?” he asked, and she went mute a moment in her recollections before she laughed a bit. “I do! In my nose and tucked up under my pelt, in your ears!” she chuckled and he grinned. “And the heat, do you recall that heat?” he asked, and he paused a moment before whining, undoubtedly mimicking her, a cry she had uttered many nights during the summer months. “It’s too hot, I’m sticky!”

They both laughed, and when she lit out to nip him he laughed and dodged her. Snow gave way under their hooves as easy as the sand they could remember, and despite how it nipped at their cannons and wetted their featherings the duo danced, in spirit, across the white sands in a much warmer climate.

Horn clangs split the calm of the early hours, as on the rise the tinges of oranges and pinks bled into shady clouds, like fervent hooves into unmolested summer grasses – the sort that received bands from the Vale on their passage to the sea.

Conn laughed softly, ever mindful of those around him slumbering in their grottos and despite her abandon, Ra maintained a silence as well. The sage stallion bucked, dodged her assaults easily on his long legs and yet she pursued him doggedly, picking up to race after him across a white stretch that surely in their minds touched a sea so clear and blue it seemed the earth had captured the sky.

Conn jumped the creek that winded through the Vale, white plumes of breath clouded his face but she could see the grin pulled over his lips, and despite how breathless Ra was she grinned as well. “I recall the herons!” he said, and when she leapt the creek he jumped back across it, opposite her and dodging her.

She giggled, like a filly given chase to her first bird after a night bound by Moon circle and followed him. When he again dodged over the creek, he laughed a laugh that warmed her to the core despite the cold of the wind that continued to bluster through the glade.

“And the brown sand birds! On their stilt legs – the ones that race to find shelter from you! The ones you harass and wear yourself to exhaustion chasing.” He continued, and she laughed. “I recall catching and besting you in our touch games!” she snapped, and when she kicked off to jump the creek this time she did not kick as hard as she should have. Both hind hooves clattered against the ice, and with her front pair on solid ground she only lost control of her hind end. Twisting, in a lame attempt to keep her feet she let loose a snort, and then a laugh that scared a nesting bird from its branch.

Before Conn could leap forward and attempt to help her she had lost her battle with the ice, and fell onto her side. Her haunches, with the inertia of her fall behind them delivered enough force upon impact to break the ice. “Ra’Erza!” Conn jumped forward to her, and despite her laughter he was very serious. The use of her true name, a secret she had told to him upon the first night of their first trip to the sea in a game of Ask or Act, caught her attention and despite herself she could not stop her laughter.

The sun was beginning to rise, and with its slow ascent into the expanse of the sky there were inhabitants of the Vale rising, as well. It was near time for the duo to head to their own grottos and tuck in for a few hours of sleep, their duties as sentries done for the day. Yet neither of them were aware of this as Conn, intent on helping his friend up resisted the urge to dissolve into laughter with her.

“Up! That water is frigid, you’ll have a tail of ice needles if we don’t dry you!” Conn urged, and as Ra clumsily fumbled her hinds against the slippery rocks beneath the surface of the frigid water, she snorted and gasped in her laughter. “We have to get you to your grotto and warm you!” he insisted and she finally pulled herself from the creek with a waterlogged tail. Her muscles jumped and jolted violently of their own accord, and it made her laugh, despite how it snatched her breath from her.

“Are you alright?!” Conn pleaded, and she laughed softy, shouldering him. “You’re going to ice over!” he pestered, and she wobbled her head at him. “With you I won’t, you keep me warm,” she laughed as she said it, struggling to catch her breath between her laughter, her words, and her panting. He gave her a perplexed, anxious look – as if he feared she had bashed her head when she had dropped. “You keep me warm, just as the seas – like the sun warms the plains and grows the grass.” She continued. There was still laughter in her voice, despite her earnestness and Conn’s ears briefly twisted back, before they flickered forward again and he nudged her delicately.

“I think that –“

Suddenly, a croak. As unwelcome as the scent of one of the black and white striped weasels that coursed thick summer grasses it caught the pair’s attention instantly. Both the sage stallion and the dun mare jerked their heads up, and their eyes towards the haggard, handsome old stallion Cryss. Gray, streaked with white rivers as jagged as the ice Ra had just fallen through, and with a keen pair of aqua eyes he stared at them almost hatefully.

“Oh!” Ra cried, as if frightened and unsure, and Conn’s ears swung back, almost pinned to his neck. The elder flipped his tail over his flanks, and spitefully observed the pair of warriors he had trained, and was responsible for in their duties. “Again – I find you frolicking about with all the brains of a pair of toadlings. Fresh hatched.” He stated, and the sheer volume of the anger that resonated in his surprisingly soothing voice made Ra want to laugh.

The pair stood quiet, shoulder to shoulder and ready for an earful large enough for a dragon – but suddenly, Ra, true to her nature grinned. It seemed to throw Cryss, whom faltered in the breath he took for his rampage. When she stepped forward his brow swung down low over his eyes and he almost bared his teeth at her. “What are you –“

“Don’t be so cranky, Cryss! Summers almost here!” Ra piped, and Cryss seemed to inflate like the bullfrog Ra said he really was. Behind her, Conn glanced hesitantly from his friend and then to their mentor, and when she pranced right by the old stallion he hurried to catch her side.

Cryss merely watched them, almost sure that Ra, whom he had always been convinced had been a mere stones drop from slobbering mad was now fully loony. He said nothing more to the pair, simply let them go – and before they were out of earshot Ra was laughing. “He thinks I’m mad!” she tittered, and Conn just shook his head. “What’s gotten into you?!” he asked softly, as if trying to dodge anymore of the sour old stallions misplaced anger. “All this talk of summer! You!” she laughed, and when he gave her that quizzical look she just tossed her head with a laugh. “I remember the stars!” she declared suddenly, and when she jumped to box him he laughed and dodged her. He was larger than she, and could no doubt best her in any spar they might fight, but he would not rise to box her.

He was gentle, as a summer breeze that carried the spray of the ocean in the heat of the sun. He warmed her without a hitch – an ever constant source of life even in the winter seasons, or the droughts in her life.

He remained green against the white of the snow and the chill of winter, like the ever present green of the needle trees high in the hills of the Vale. His eyes, so pale and sapphire like those skies that stretched over the seas remained vibrant and full of life, kindness, even on the days when she grew the crankiest and fell back on her old crutches.

He was that summer pull she needed in her life, even in those bitterly cold weeks that made her bones and her heart ache. He couldn’t, and probably wouldn’t understand such a sentiment for a long while – but dancing after his long, jade and ginger form across the white of snow that she could mistake for the white of sand, she didn’t really mind.

Back to the Summer Sea 2009 Fiction List
Click Here