Arc 7: Before the Wind

7 – 1

“When I found you, you were poor, and weak, and mocked. Now, see yourselves: strong, and rich, and feared. You've risen high. I'll lead you higher. All you have to do...is follow.”

-Merigold Thresh

- - -

“This,” Clarke whines, “is miserable.”

“We're dry,” I answer. It's a vast improvement over the last time I was caught out in weather like this. “I should think the horse has it worse.” It can't shelter under the cart with us, as much as I might wish otherwise. Still, it bears up admirably under the deluge, whickering complaints only in the wake of lightning's flash and thunder's rumble.

“Maybe,” my other companion allows, before rallying, “but – he's a horse! He doesn't care if he's cold and wet!” Had she thought we would journey under nothing but clear skies? With the cart above us and my spread-out cloak below, we're all but spared the touch of the pitch-bellied clouds overhead. She's nothing to complain about. I roll onto my front, rest my chin in the fork of my elbow, and don't answer her.

There is something about a storm, and the gray-tinged world that it creates, that has some inherent, restful quality. Everything is closer and quieter when the curtains of obscuring rain fall. Lightning spears out from one of the pitch-bellied clouds, splintering as it stabs into the distant surface of the lake. Thunder follows as I blink its echo from my eyes. The rumble fades into the fall of rain and I hear the snort-and-stomp of our horse. I hear Clarke, who quietly says, “Zira?”

“Mm?”

Wind gusts through the thick wall of cattails that line the lake-side of the road, their sigh and sway filling the silence before she asks, “Do you think...that it'll be all right? With Edith, I mean?”

I roll my head along my arm, tucking my temple into my shoulder, so that I can see her. She's on her back, fingers woven together and resting on her belly, studying the bottom of the cart. Her blue eyes, made dark by the graying of the world, show what feeling she hides from her voice. I close the distance between us with the bridge of my arm, resting my hand atop hers. They're cold, warming quickly beneath my touch. She breaks away from her intense study to follow our joining with her gaze, ending it by meeting mine.

What am I meant to do, here? Do I repeat what advice Agnes gave me, that whatever fracture separates us will be closed and healed by time? It's easy to recall the sour disappointment I felt when hearing it, as though she hadn't grasped the true extent of the expanse, or simply hadn't cared. No, best that stay with me. I say, hesitantly, “I think...yes, it will. But–” I close my mouth on the rest of it.

“But...?” Clarke prompts, after a moment.

All of those half-formed and useless thoughts collide and make a useless mess of themselves in my mind. Lightning, out on the lake. Thunder, rolling through the air. The rain falls, seemingly without end. I confess, in the end, that, “I don't know. I...I just don't.”

Anger glimmers in her eyes. Anger at me. I'm not well pleased with myself, either. Yet another question with no answer. If this is what it means to be grown, I'd rather not.

It isn't much, and doesn't last, this anger, but while it does the gray-tinged world in which we live feels confining. I itch with it, discomforted in my own skin, and would rather go soak with the horse than continue like this. It comes to an end when Clarke groans and pulls her hands free to scrub them down her face. My hand remains on her belly, rising and falling as she breathes. She sighs and tracks her eyes across the bottom of the cart. It hasn't changed. “I wish she'd come with us,” she says, just above a murmur. “It would be better.”

“Yes,” I agree, “it would be.” I don't say that it would never happen, that Edith would never leave her home. Clarke already knows that. My neck's starting to ache, so I roll my head to cradle my chin in my elbow's crook. After a moment, Clarke mirrors me. My arm slides from her belly, across the bones of her hip, and rests in the small of her back. I give a press of my fingers, just a touch, as invitation.

Warmth blooms as she takes it, from where we touch and in my heart. We watch the rain curtain down from pitch-bellied clouds, our gray-tinged world brightening and growing as the storm wanes. The air is fresh, and clear, and cool. Our horse tosses its head, shaking water from its mane. Soon there will be sunlight, and the road. Not yet, though.

Rain's still falling. World's still small. We've got some time.

- - -

The storm clears to reveal a sunset-sky; bands of soft, vibrant color painted on a canvas of rich, darkening purple. This last display of light and warmth is reflected in the calmed waters of the lake, in errant clouds drifting aimlessly, and in the austere rise of the Icewall Mountains in the east. It's in the shimmering, rain-slicked stretches of mud that grasp at the caked wheels of the our cart, and the wide, liquid eyes of the horse that saves us from that fate. I rub my thumb on the rough-cut leather reins I've looped around my hands. A good horse, this. Good horses need names.

Thunder, maybe, or Storm? Strong names, but it seems unfair to name something after what it dislikes. It'd be like naming me Eel or Clarke, Bronwyn. Funny, perhaps, but unkind. She shifts on the bench seat next to me, wrapping a cloak of her own more securely around herself. Mine lays thickly around me, its hood serving as a makeshift scarf. Both are well-made and warm. They'll do well to blunt the keenest edge of the night's advancing chill.

There's not nearly enough grouch or grumble in the beast to name it Harlan, so I'm left without an idea. No matter, it'll come to me. Night begins to rise as we roll on down the open road. The last of the sunset retreats beneath the horizon-stretch of the lake. The first sliver of the moon, pale and woeful as bone, peeks above the shrouded crags in the east. What warmth remains flees, and quickly. Breath mists in the still, quiet air. Our nameless horse bends its long and elegant head to crop a mouthful of tall grass from the roadside, grinding the fibers between its blunt teeth as it carries us on. We'll need to stop soon and camp, more for its sake than ours.

The safest and closest place I know of is the promontory, where Harlan and I stayed the night before reaching Valdenwood. There's a firepit already dug, which means less work, but it's doubtful there's any dried wood to be found. A post, also, with an iron loop we could tie the horse's halter to. It could rest free of bit, bridle, or harness that way. Yes, I decide, it'll do nicely.

If I can find it. While there's enough light, from woeful moon and silver-soft stars, to see by, I'm worried it won't be enough to spot a particular stretch of cattails on a roadside filled with them. I'm not worried we've already gone past it, as it was about a day's travel from Valdenwood at reasonable speed. Our progress today has been, between the storm and the sticking muck it made of the road, not that. Somewhere, a night bird gives a low, mournful cry. Overhead, bats on the wing dart through the sky, hunting what insects dare show themselves.

Clarke mutters something uncharitable beside me, and a dim star bursts to light in the depths of her wrapped cloak. A wave of dry warmth, like from a campfire, washes over me and sinks into my clothes. In the glow of the ice at the hollow of her throat, I see a band of pink across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. “Not a word,” she threatens. I press my lips together from how much I comply.

Eventually I can comply no longer, and so ask, “Did...you forget you could–?”

“Yes!” she interrupts, voice high and embarassed. I wouldn't dare call it a squeak. Not aloud, at least. “We could've been dry and warm this whole time, and I just–” she stops there abruptly, and groans in disgust.

I hide my smile in my cloak's makeshift scarf. “In your defense,” I say, or start to, but again, I'm interrupted.

“No!”

“But–” I try again.

“No!” A hand emerges from the tight wrap of her cloak. It points a dire finger at me. The person it's attached to says, “Not a word, I mean it! Just...forget it ever happened.” Then, in a mighty effort to change the subject, she asks, “Hadn't we better find somewhere to camp soon?”

In light of the finger and the threat it contains, I let it go and answer, “Yes, and – in fact, I could use your help.” I describe the promontory, and finish by saying, “We should be getting close, so...keep an eye out.”

Clarke nods and takes to the search with an amount of seriousness that tucks a smile into the corners of my mouth. I keep looking back to it as our lamentably nameless horse pulls us down the muddied road. The determined set of her jaw, and how she shades her eyes from the long-set sun, is all too endearing. “There!” she snaps out the same I was just threatened with, pointing at a thicket of cattails. A thicket that looks identical to the rest.

“There?” I ask.

“There,” she insists. When we get close, I bring the cart to a halt and she jumps down, pacing over to a pair of narrow divots in the grass that grew between earthen road and cattail thicket. She stands over them, hands proud on her hips. “See?”

“I do,” I answer, faintly. I do see. How she did, I've only a guess: magic.

Is that a good name for a good horse?