Is it time to let go? [Open]

[Rivre]

With the last futile grip of summer losing its hold on the high country, autumn took on its own assault: frosty winds began to crawl across the higher slopes, rattling leaves from the gums and candlebarks, the waters becoming clearer with the frost and the atmosphere taking on a grey, dull appearance. It looked like winter might come early this year. The chance of seeing sunlight was unlikely and its appearances infrequent but on the day that the young roan stallion decided to travel a path previously abandoned it seemed it would christen his journey. Thackory felt the change of weather in his bones and in his hooves, they seemed to ache with the urge to eat, which did not go unsatisfied with him to begin with. He was a muscly, powerfully built and stocky stallion with a large head and sloping shoulders that aided travel but not speed and his coat was dappling further with the cold into a flurry of roaned white bay and chestnut. His journey was to the Bogong - a place he had not visited for an entire turn of seasons. He was three now and it was hard to imagine returning after such a long time to see the place where his father's bones most likely bleached.

It was not just the cold that nagged the heat from his moving body, but also the grief that he had hidden deep within the recesses of himself - the loss of his father Nandalie. It was unusual for a foal to remember his sire once he had left the herd or been chased off but Thackory had shared a likeness with his father and understood his leadership from a young age. He had looked to him as a model stallion, for himself even - when he was old enough to gather mares. Thackory had left him to his defeat when a provoking stranger had decided to take it upon himself to take his mares. Thackory was not of a quick temper, but the memory of the grey stallion beat a rhythm more profound than that of his heart as he trudged on up the rugged landscape, keeping up his purposeful trot.

It seemed appropriate that when he finally reached the top of the slope the sun should be drawn back beneath its veil of clouds, the gales more forceful with height throwing mane and tail to stream across his flanks and face. He took in the randomly spotted bimbles with little interest, instead zoning in on a small rise that had once been home to a magnificently strong chestnut stallion. With dark cherry bay mane obscuring his vision, he was sure for a moment that he saw the same dark horse returning his statuesque image, deep gaze filled with an empty expression of sadness. Blinking he sent a sorrowful call to the ghost horse. For a moment he stood, not daring the move or breath, but with the closing of his lids the blurred brumby had become the brush. It was not his father. He allowed himself a little time to reminisce, but not long before he shook all thoughts of his father from his mind and made off towards a shallow dip in the slope that hid some of the youngest shoots. To any on-looker he may have looked the image of a horse they had once known, but he was not mindful to his physical likeness and so carried on regardless.

[chododo]

Boroinu stood looking at the sky, her mane and tail blown out in the wind. She held her head high and thought how the sun was glinting of her midnight coat. She could see and sense by the way leaves were drifting from the trees and nights were becoming colder that Summer had definitely lost now and Autumn had come and then there would be winter. A shiver ran down Boroinu's body, remembering how she had nearly starved in the last winter when she had been foolish enough to go exploring and had been split from her herd. It had been by luck that Boroinu was found by her mother.

No horse would guess that she was hungry and tired as she set off at a trot for the shade of some trees, picking up her neat hooves as she always did so. The night before she had been chased by a stallion, one who was craftier than she had thought. Only with her agility and her dark coat had she escaped; dodging and turning through shadows till the stallion no longer knew where she was. She had not stopped to eat many times since then, still wary of the stallion.

She froze as she heard a call but relaxed as she knew immediately it was not the same stallion, this one sounded very different. She was confused as to why the call sounded sorrowful. She now began to trot again but this time quietly and stealthily, keeping off anything that would announce her presence. She spotted a way off a chestnut roan, a young stallion. For a second Boroinu thought that she saw a stallion that was said to be dead but then shook her head. No, this stallion was too young to be that stallion and this younger stallion looked heavier built.