Days and days had marked the time since Valka last set foot south of the Aurora Basin. She could do little to impress the natives while out of their sight – so her thought process led on. Recently though, Valka had recalled the forest she first passed through on her way into Helovia, the way many scents lingered on the branches and the bark. The one who greeted her there had been ugly and ill-tempered, and the more Valka thought on this memory the more certain she became that other unicorns must also go that way, and might also be accosted by the undeserving. And if such unicorns proved less discerning than she? They might end up in the clutches of undesirous beasts. If Valka saved them, on the other hand… She could hear praise from Snö and Mauja already.
Cool breezes whispered through the mare’s long mane and tail as she walked. They quickly died off, though, the further she went. Trees became a corrugated sort of grassland; a strange, warm smell drifted into Valka’s lungs. She realized she was lost and yet kept walking anyway, her temper flaring. How could she so easily forget the way? It was not so long ago… She was no crippled old thing, to be easily mislead… Valka’s hooves crunched over rock and skittered on sparse soil. With a breath rattling in her lungs she hesitated, wondering again at the odd smell in the air. It reminded her a little of the hot springs, but it was alien nonetheless, and suddenly she missed the familiar crack of permafrost, the shelter of trees…
Carefully, the dark mare paced along the rock. Her strange, mismatched eyes picked out the shapes of two unicorns in the distance. Valka’s graceful neck lifted and she uttered a long, clear whinny in greeting before picking up a trot, trusting the proximity to render the terrain safe. She was surprised, then, when a sudden vent of heat rippled across her chest and blew back the long, black ribbons of her mane.
Eyes rolling, Valka hesitated, haunches quivering with the full burden of her lanky body’s weight. ”Fire!” she yelled, clambering away from the brilliant stream. Fire in the ground? She had obviously stumbled on some strange new hell. Sweat glistened on the mare’s lean sides as she leapt sideways and scrambled toward the strangers, nostrils flaring. She didn’t know them, but she knew the swords fastened to their brows made them kin. Her hooves slipped and cracked loudly on the hard earth, but at last she stood, sides heaving, near the male and let her wild eyes run over them both. ”Valka,” she said at last. The foreign scent in the air confused her senses; did the one nearest smell just faintly of pine and frost? She wasn’t sure; she whipped her tail against shivering haunches and watched them with uncertain eyes. In such a place, her brain was fast deciding, even the most certain allies could prove dangerous.
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Valka
