The Return Home [Open]

[Caits]

It was a funny thing, to come back to the place one had been born after so long away. There was the expectation that everything would be the same, waiting to continue on with life when those who were missing returned. Although he knew that was not what really happened, it was still a shock to come back and see how things had changed in the range Turt had once called home as Prisma, prince of the High Country. As he had traveled further and further north the unmistakeable tang of woodsmoke and charred bush had assailed his nostrils and his heart had plummeted from his chest.

Turt had always had with him an image in his mind about what his high country had looked like and it had been ruined by the fire scarred land that had risen up before him. From his vantage point on a rocky outcrop, the spotted stallion could not see to what extent the fire had ravaged the mountain range and he knew of only one place he could fully gauge the damage to Prisma's home.

It was to the top of Mount Kosciusko itself he climbed, weaving his way up the steady steep slope of the sparsely covered mountain. Unused to the residual ash slightly weighing down the air, by the time Turt reached the summit his sides were heaving and soaked in sweat from the effort. He had not imagined himself climbing the mountain his first day back. Still, the trip had been worth it if only to see Prisma's home again for many seasons. The fire had raged through most of the range but there were still many places that had remained untouched and it gave the stallion hope that those he had once loved had escaped its fatal clutches.

Turt held little hope for his mother and he knew his father was dead but the fate of his siblings was still a mystery to him. Part of him wanted to learn their fate but another part of him, the Turt part did not. Silently resolving not to think about them, the black and white spotted stallion dropped his head and cropped at the few tufts of snowgrass peeking out between the cracks of rock at his feet. He was aware that he was out in the open at a time when he wanted to lay low but for that moment he did not care.

[Corowa]

Ringarooma carefully followed the track that ran along the top of Rawson’s Pass. The sheer, rocky summit of Mt Kosciusko rose up only a few hundred feet ahead. It was all open country, this high up, and Ringarooma felt very exposed. There was no place here for a nervous horse to hide, only great, stretches of mountain for many miles around.

It seemed man was everywhere in the country below the Thredbo. Now was when the brumby drives really started, before winter forced the stockmen down off the mountains. So it was that the filly had crossed the Thredbo River and come through Merritts Spur. There had been a few small, scattered mobs of brumbies up on the Ramshead Range, but they had paid little attention to a lone filly.

The track gave way to bare patches of snowgrass. Here, there was little sign of the fire that had burnt out much of the Cascades. Ringarooma picked her way carefully around a tumble of boulders that spilt down onto the pass. The filly slipped on the rough ground, and sent a rock crashing down off the high cliff face. She broke into a panicky trot, startled by the sudden loud noise. A granite outcrop obscured her view of the summit, and as Ringarooma hurried around behind it, a scent reached her nostrils that caused the filly to throw up her head in confusion.

There, on the easternmost flank of Mt Kosciusko, was a strangely-marked black brumby. Ringarooma stopped in her tracks. A startled whinny escaped the filly, and she stood perfectly still, as if turned to stone. Ringarooma heard only the sound of her own breath. That strange brumby must have already noticed her by now. There was nothing she could do, for Ringarooma dared not try and escape down the long, precipitous slope.

[Caits]

It wasn’t just his siblings that Turt’s mind wandered to as he stood on the great Kosciusko’s summit. His thoughts touched on the two mares that had once run with him when he’d been so young. Dilkera the carefree appaloosa and Calca, the one for whom he had braved the wrath of the great Nevada himself to lead away. The white spotted black stallion also thought of the daughter Dilkera had given him, Lentara the only foal sired by Prisma. He was unaware that both Dilkera and Calca had given him another daughter and a son for he had left the range before even realising they were pregnant. Whilst living his new life as Turt with his grey mares in the south, word had reached his white tipped ears that the daughter of Prisma had also come south to Quambat for a time.

Looking over the fire scorched landscape, Turt remembered how he had longed to seek her out but had not and the same longing settled itself in him to find Dilkera and Calca thought again he probably would not. Lost in his broodings he ignored the prickling of his hide and the feeling he was not alone for a time until the clattering of a loose rock down the mountainside brought his attention back to reality. At once his head snapped around, searching for the source of the noise. Turt left his perch and moved towards where he thought the sound had come from and then spotted her.

A little way off him, slightly down the eastern slope of the mountain stood a bay dun brumby and a female by the smell of it. Edging ever closer, Turt looked at her curiously, toying with the idea to start collecting mares again but quickly rejecting it. It was far too soon for such a thing. As he got nearer he could see she was young and had an almost familiar look about her that Turt could not place. He could also see she was as tense as he was and so he nickered gently to her, trying to encourage her that he would not harm her and nor did he have an interest in collecting her.

”Don’t be alarmed little one. I mean you no harm,” the black stallion reiterated softly. ”What is your name and where have you come from? I am Turt from the south, can you tell me who rules this range?” It would indeed be interesting to hear who had claimed the spot his father had held peacefully for so many summers.