Andarin: The Mountains: then the smiles turn to ash ;

They forge, wild mountaineers that they are, deep paths through the deep brush, across the expanse of the river basins and the lilied meadows, until - suddenly - they arrive.

There are two. (This, he had planned for iconic reasons as well as sensible ones; the iced slopes of Andarin are not safe to peruse alone, and the world, with its great, gaping, dark mouths, is not always a friendly place.) The first is pale and light-footed, free as the wind that ruffles lovingly across his slim nape and tosses the ghosting strands of his mane. He is young, and especially long-legged because of that. But he does not walk or stumble - rather, he dances, through the boughs of trees that swoop down and claw at the fur on his back, already faded to innocent gray. There is neither smile nor frown on his face - merely contentment, an altogether simple pleasantness that crawls from his charcoal-black lips up to the somber bins of his stark, light-blue eyes.

The second moves swiftly and territorially around the trees. They move, not together, but comfortably apart, each aware of the other’s position but willing to drift lazily from it. Their ties, after all, are greater - they know no bounds like time or space through which to love.

The mare is larger than the boy, thick-crested and creatively shaded, her large bones dragging eerily through the sod. She does not dance - rather, she storms, nearly afire, dark eyes ablaze and her copper-chrome coat glinting brightly through shadow. That is how they operate, she and him, a perfect paradox: loving and unloved, beautiful and unbeautiful - wonderful, because they refute all that would make them so.

In the dark and sinister calm, the tall mare smiles.

*

“Brother?”

A pause - he waits for her at the edge of the brook, reveling in the water that rushes up and down (as it should have, lapping, loving), an ear turned back in wonder.

“This it, then.”

There is a shared breath, the light flutter of his nostrils, the dark, heavy resignation of her own.

“Andarin.”

*

A storm brews on the wings of the magistrate (it always does) - but for the first time they come upon it, together as they should be, and though her first instinct is to run away, his worry for the child keeps them grounded.

She burns, the child, the one they do not know and do not care for. In the dark stillness of the forest that is and is not their home, they watch - they watch with burdened, hollowed eyes, the rack of her heart and the rhythm of her breath, in-out, in the crisp mountain air. She pains - this they know, for they know great pain (they know, in fact, exceptional, exquisite, unblessed pain); and though the mare would not have sympathy for her, the ghost-boy does, and that is enough.

“You burn,” she says, her voice rough and hard and not quite loving - it is nothing like his voice, or how it was, before he gave up the dark, lyrical, poisonous sound. If there is curiosity tucked beneath her breast it doesn’t show - rather, she houses a lackluster disregard for the filly, dark eyes watching the emotion that pulses across her skin and the bright glow of Childhood at her breast, or what is left of it. “Which,” she continues coldly, ignoring the quiet scuff behind her, the silent protest of a brother that knows too well, “is not a smart thing, in a forest like this.”

*

They breathe as one: in, then out; rise, then fall.

“Brother,” she whispers, her nose brushing sadly against his withers, “it is time.”