RUSKE

As spring waxed full and warm with the march of days, my physical state began to improve. Tired strings of muscle which before only clung to bone out of miserable spite increased, grew supple. Weight began to fill in the worst of the hollows in my flanks, though more time than the single passage of a season was required to see me truly well. It had been a miracle I managed to survive illness, at all. I reminded myself of this fact often, but still I chafed at the limitations of my physical form.

The day had dawned bright and clear some time ago. My hooves scraped over a narrow trail cut into the mountainside. Ever curious, I followed its meandering way up and up, as rock walls rose on either side of me and the world drew small and insignificant below. Forest and field became one, no better than a tapestry – a map – laid out behind me. I paused now and then to study the phenomenon as I climbed, when the chance arose. Perhaps more honestly, I also paused to catch my breath.

Though I had examined my own state with as objective an eye as I might produce, I had clearly overestimated by endurance. Too much time spent wandering, vagrant and fearful, had wasted even the pitiful muscle I had once possessed. I stood gaunt and heaving at every bend in the trail, thoroughly annoyed with myself and with the thin bite of the mountain air. I was fast becoming the frail old man with little more than thoughts to my significance – perhaps not even that. I had provided aid to very few, thus far, and even my attempts at doing so had proven clumsy – uncharacteristically so. I was slipping.

Anger pushed me forward better than any other motivation. I had decided to climb; I would climb. It was no great task… Yet it required the better part of a morning. More often than not I contemplated returning the way I had come, only to step forward again with a resolute shake of my head. My younger self would be ashamed – appalled – by the sight. I had never been a soldier, but I had never required aid in going anywhere I wished to go. Mobility was desirable trait in a healer; when had I lost it?

At long last I thrust over the crest of the hill. Sweat shone in dark patches under my coat, patchy as I was – irregularly shed. I paused with an assertive snort, triumphant, at least, in my small venture. The view proved worth the cost, at least: flat, rolling grassland, sweet and green with the warmth of sunlight pooling on its head. My ears pricked forward, interest caught again. Having arrived, I sauntered over the grass at an easy pace and allowed my eyes to feast. Much to take in: the individual species of plant, the furtive movement further down the field, the low murmur of conversation just beyond my reach. I gathered I was not the only one to discover the place, but its vastness and the mingled scent of no herd in particular told me, also, I did not intrude on anything very specific. Pleased, then, I wandered forward, pausing only to twist my horn at the roots of an irregularly colored nettle, better to study its structure.

NursE

world's edge