yael

“Oh, you flatter me,” she quickly retorts, and dips her head, as if to hide a blush on her face. It is teasing - she is amused by his antics and public flirting. What she hopes to say is that she knows his game, but decided the first time they met that she would play along.

“Ze long answer?” Eyes dart up to his bald face, from the ground to the heavens, and they linger on it under a questioning brow. Did he mean it? Did he truly want to know? She begins slowly. “Een my language, each letter xas multeeple meanings. A sound, but also seembolism from eets deesign. T’is -” she taps her chest again, “ - ees ze beeginning of all t’ings. Eet starts every letter. Eet ees ze spark of life t’at ees een all t’ings. But eet also xas a value of ten - to show t’at ze vorld ees much beeger t’an us.” She pauses and smiles, dipping down to her newest piece of jewelry. “T’is ees shaped like a basket or a vomb. Eet ees ze kindness of our eeneetial creation, ze pah’er to create good and erase bad…”

She trails off and in a sudden stillness finds a bit of strength to confess a very deep part of herself. “I try to leeve by t’ose t’oughts. To do no xarm unless I must, to protect t’ose I love.”

Then Yael falls silent, aside from her request, and allows Gaal to take the glass ornament from her grasp and put it over her head. It slides down her long, thin neck and settles beside the yod. She makes no movement to dissuade his touch, but finds herself unable to reciprocate anything. Not yet. Her ghosts still linger.

Instead, she changes the subject, and like she has done before, turns it back on him. “I t’ink you vill make a fine Glazier, Gaal. Ah, I must xaf talked your ear off. Eef you are done -” she looks around and sees no others requiring glass items, so continues. ”- care to valk and tell me about yourself?”

Never forget that Yael is old, and often traditional. She likes her flirting and faux courtships to be done properly.  

yael

The reason Yael reminds him of his mother miiiight be because she is likely as old – if not older – than whomever lovingly carried his feathered, hulkingly large body in their womb. It is truly a labor of love that stallions cannot quite understand, the process of carrying and delivering foals – especially when their dams are rather small, and their sires are… gargantuan.  She cannot possibly know what size Gaal’s mother’s uterus was, but if one were to ask the petite mare to speak from experience, she would be able to provide a wealth of information about the aches and pains and litteral waddling that goes on. Women dive headlong into this battle every day and still, somehow – somewhere – they are considered the weaker sex. It is one thing Yael will never understand.

Their relationship is slowly evolving; it seems like every time they speak (though it has only been twice now), some deeper, hidden part of themselves rises up from the studiously hidden and meticulously buried part of themselves. It’s as if the warmth in the gold of their fur is enough to break through the cracks in haphazardly erected walls and shine a light onto the unexpected; a beautiful, warm, healing light that is fed solely by their eagerness to listen to each other. Even if he is half motivated by lust, Gaal is the first to truly ask about Yael’s past in an attempt to know her, not to satisfy a curious itch, or to keep her from crying in the middle of the night. What does that say about Helovians? What does that say about her?

”I do,” she replies firmly in assurance. ‘And eef you are voried, t’en practeece! Ze vay you learned to fly, yes?” Of course, she does not know how Gaal learned to fly – it may have been fraught with fear and injury, but in the end, he had to learn to do it - he had to make a conscious effort before he could soar the skies with ease (and there is a vast difference between her light frame coasting on the thermals, and hauling his bulk up into the clouds). And then, the perfect picture of innocent, as if she had absolutely no idea what he could possibly be referring to, she responds with a steady voice, “Oh, I’m sure you’re terribly good at reaching t’ings t’at are very high up, yes?”

You know the one’s she talking about - the ones that are too high to reach on hind legs, but not quite worth the effort of flying.

She breaks into a cheeky smile that slowly fades into a shy one, under his intense gaze (ever hot, ever blazing she wonders how he can maintain such intensity - or does is simply burn brightly for her?). As her long, elegantly pointed ears listen to his story, her eyes roam the color changes of his body, the dark specs in his white face, the accent points, and highlights in his mane. She absorbs it all as she absorbs his gift of words, knowing that she has just breached the surface of his story. But little by little, she is determined to uncover the mystery that is the lusty-lidded, the gentlemanly Graasvoel.

Unfortunately, she is not yet so sure how to tell her own story. And when prompted, hesitates for a moment. She opens with an uneasy sound in the back of her throat and settles for, “I am not... sure you vould believe my story, Gaal. Eet ees… over forty years long. Eet ees ze stuff of fairy tales and dreams… of fires and mageec and love and loss… and t’ere are t’elve very beloved cheeldren t’at I do not t’ink I shall ever see again.”

She cannot bring herself to look in his eyes, for fear that they would mirror back disbelief. And also, perhaps, because she is trying to blink away her tears and is doing a very poor job of hiding it.  If Gaal ever wanted an out - this is his chance.