when I pretend everything is what I want it to be

I look exactly like what you had always wanted to see

The thick grasses brushed teasingly against his sides as Roland walked the edge of the Thistle Meadow. It was a familiar path to him now, for he often visited it when his adventures strayed beyond the borders of his home, and he preferred it to the hard, stone shelves of the sea wall, or the dizzying heights of the Heavenly Fields. Sunlight poured like honey across his back, over the smooth curve of his shoulders and barrel. He could feel its golden heat against his skin, bearing down upon him like a physical weight. The Thief had grown so accustomed to the northern climate that he felt himself sweating beneath the sun’s rays, and dipped in and out of shade wherever he found it, though his gaze never strayed from the dark form ahead of him and its white companion as they basked beneath the sun.

Lena had looked striking in the moonlight, its silver glow settling over the dark of her hide, weaving like sterling thread through the auburn locks of her hair. Yet now the sun poured all of its brilliance and luster upon her, and the Time Mender was awash in the incandescence of its rays, capering about through a galaxy of wild flowers and tall grass. She was embellished, emblazoned, robed in nature, a dark flower amongst so many colourful petals. Lena had ever been more attentive than the Thief to the songs and melodies of the earth, singing in tune and dancing along to its rhythm; even now as the meadow teemed with life and jubilance, birdsong floating across the summer breeze, she conformed to its ballad. Far from it were the caves beneath the Heart, drenched and drowning in molding water and murky shadows, yet even there she had pushed back the gloom from where it had rested, stagnant, in the soil and stone. Roland stopped for a moment in a patch of shade, his tail winding around his hocks as he watched, listened, obscured beneath the shadow of heavy boughs. The air was cool, out of the sun’s reach, but the breeze that swept across his skin was still stiflingly warm. Perhaps he had grown too attached to the cool north, and the respite it brought from the sweltering temperatures that so often plagued the south.

Beyond him strode Lena, dancing through the wild flowers with Imogen at her heels. Roland was content to watch them enjoy themselves, frolicking over the rise and fall of the meadow’s smooth slopes, freed from the shadows cast by the mountains.

It was almost like looking upon the fields of his birth home, the rolling expanses of lush grass that sprawled from one edge of the woodlands to the next, their own sanctuary basking beneath the full gaze of the sun. As a foal, he had been struck with endless amounts of energy, tearing from one corner of the field to the next. There was always some game, some quarry to chase; a bird perhaps, flitting just out of reach as it sought out its next perch, or a butterfly, leisurely riding the gentle breeze and always an easy catch. He had never complicated his sport with any irrelevant thoughts or worries. He had been a child, too young to sink into the pits of his own memories, or ponder the future. He hadn’t even gone by the same name.

Imogen leapt amongst the blossoms, and as she and her companion called out in unison to him, Roland left the refreshing cool of the shade and emerged into the sun, carrying himself swiftly along the dark, solid edge of the forest, though he no longer moved with the uncalculated swiftness and reckless abandon of a colt. He arrived at Lena’s side with a bright smile, his hooves digging into the soft soil beneath his feet as he drew to a halt. “You two are difficult to keep up with,” he teased, shaking his forelock from his eyes as he cast a wink in the Time Mender’s direction.