DANCING in the snow

[Corowa]

Myrrina snorted, shying when the foal burst from the thick scrub to her left. Werrilah crept to her side, his white ears twitching as he thrust his head under and nursed. Resting a hind leg, Myrrina turned and cleaned the sweat and dirt from his coat. Too weary and miserable to stand, the colt dropped to the ground. Nosing him reassuringly, the mare raised her head and looked to the south, from where those worrying winds blew.

The bush was alive with whispers of the great black stallion, Tingara king of all the Cascade brumbies. Captured, screeched the currawongs and the bronze cuckoo had told it so, yet the shy lyrebird Molluka had woven a dance of hope and escape, and Myrrina had turned southwards to the Ramshead.

For moaning through the gullies of steep mountain ash, the wind carried with it the scent of snow, and the air was heavy with mist so Werrilah seemed borne along on it. Fear had driven them far down into Yarraman’s Valley, yet longing for her mate, and haunted by ghosts of the past, Myrrina had sought the High Country once more. Struggling on through the rough country of the Crackenback, this queer white foal by her side, the mare had met with nothing but loneliness, tales of sorrow and of mourning.

Werrilah stirred with a fearful half-whinny, and from where she grazed further down the grassy slope, Myrrina hurried to his side. Slowly, the colt awoke and stared sleepily up at his mother. “Shh, young one,” the mare said with a gentle nicker. “We will find him,” she went on. “We will find him once again.”

OOC: A post for Tingara and Myrrina to get all smoochy again. Other people welcome once we're a couple of posts in.

[Tiggs]

Morning brought a fresh flurry of snow. The wind came in all directions to lift it in dancing patterns, and the pale stallion’s spirits rose as he trotted down the well-worn paths to the river. He planned to follow it, covering the more populated routes in the hope of picking up a trail of one or more of his mares. Despite missing them terribly, he managed to suppress his worry that he would never find them as the cold willy-willies spun the soft flakes in every direction.

The twisting of wind caught his mane and tail, buffeting the white hair in wild spirals. Most horses disliked the disorientating snow, but Nevada was at home in it. His perfectly white coat – clean now from rolling in his favourite spot up on the Bogong – blended seamlessly in the whitening world and he seemed able to navigate the land even when most of its landmarks were gone.

He’d left Kirrkie with Luz up on the Bogong, glad for the weather to deter that bay from coming back for them while he was away. Just to make sure, he’d hidden them somewhere safe and had been careful not to lead a trail when he departed. He made no attempt to hide his steps now. The snow made the whole High Country his domain, and nothing could dash his confidence now.

That fight with the silver bay had given him an extra boost and after a good night’s sleep he was almost recovered; his gait was long and high now as he enjoyed the feel of the thin blanket of settling snow under his hooves. He kicked up his heels as the ground flattened, and he cantered down to the water’s edge. It wasn’t yet cold enough for the water to be frozen, and the snow hissed as it hit the running surface and melted into its stream. Nevada dropped his dark muzzle, sucked up a few cold mouthfuls and then tossed his head high.

It was time to get down to business. His trot turned efficient, covering ground smoothly so he could keep his nose low and search for clues. He found nothing, and when the banks became steeper, he slowed. He should start to head back so as not to worry Kirrkie and her friend if she’d chosen to stay. He began climbing the ridge, and had he not chosen that moment to start on home, he would have missed them.

Hidden in the sparse bush, their coats as indistinguishable in the snow as his own, was a mare and her colt. The stallion’s ears instantly flicked forward and every fibre of him stood to attention. It was Myrinna, the ghostly mare who haunted his wintery dreams. His breath escaped him slowly, clouding the air around him as he simply stared.

Like the first time he had seen her, he wanted her. The snow fell around her and he knew it fell for her. One quick move and she could be gone, melt away into the increasing storm with nary a trace. Only his thundering heartbeat moved in him. He didn’t want to take one more step in case the mirage faded and he was left alone.

The colt he knew must be hers, and it satisfied him that it was not black like his father, but a pure white like himself. He could even be his own son. Nevada nickered before he realised he was making a sound, calling softly for Myrinna. “Please, don’t go.” He pleaded. He knew from his approach there were no other horses here. He had been specifically looking out for another brumby, and Tingara would not have escaped his notice. She was alone, and it set his heart racing faster.

“Your name, I need your name. Please.” He had still not yet learnt it. She was as mysterious as she was beautiful. It had been almost a year since he had seen her last, but her image was as clearly etched in his mind as clearly as he could see her now. The snow eased a little, and he stepped forward, nostrils quivering as she strained to catch the scent of her. He was so eager to feel her muzzle against his again. One wrong move and she would be gone again. The colt might sloe her up some, but if he was half the brumby she was, he would still have a hard time following them. Snow might be his element, but she was born of it. His snowstorm soliloquy. She was meant for him.

[Corowa]

Snow fell, great whirling flakes that fell cold on her back and turned the world white. Through the snow, a stallion’s call came, and Myrrina tossed up her head and stood listening. Trembling all over, the mare threw her own shrill answer to the winds. For half-seen in the falling curtain of snow, the white stallion stood, he who haunted her dreams, and filled her with such wondering restlessness.

With a fearful whinny, Werrilah struggled to his feet and sheltered beneath her belly. Memories awoke, were stirred into life by the throbbing of her blood and the sudden singing in her veins. Alive and full of this thrilling excitement, the mare turned to the white stallion. Loneliness and sorrow softened her, so that she called him to her, through the softly fallen snow, promised him she would not run. Werrilah sensed his mother’s anxiousness and longing, and he too stared at that ghostly white stallion, and felt suddenly afraid.

The wind murmured through the leaves of the snowgums, whispered of betrayal and loss. Myrrina listening, shivered with dread, for it seemed an ill omen, and when the wise old mopoke gave his mournful call, the mare slipped silently back towards the snowgums. Beside her, Werrilah vanished into the blinding whiteness, so she wondered whether he still followed. Yet there was his shoulder pressed close to her flank, his breath hot on her shoulder, and beneath it all, the steady thrum of his heart.

When the stallion neighed again, Myrrina could not contain the call she flung to those snow-laden winds. “Myrrina for the wind,” the call said, and it echoed around the thicket of snowgums, round and round, so Werrilah trembled at the strangeness of it all.

[Tiggs]

His sigh of relief at her promise that she would not run was almost explosive. He had to check his speed as he blundered forward in his haste to reach her. The snow suddenly thickened and drew him up short. When the opaque flurry had passed, she was gone and Nevada called out in desperation. Her name came swirling on the winds, and the white stallion whinnied his gratitude. She was not gone, just hidden. He ploughed on forward through the snow, lashes keeping the stinging flakes from his eyes.

The same wind that spoke of betrayal and loss sung an eerily tune of mystery to the stallion. The lilting voice of it had him disorientated as he broke the tree line. How would he ever find her? She was like no other mare in the snow. She was untraceable. Her name: Myrrina – for the wind. That wind sought to confuse him. Was it her test? Nevada stopped his frantic search and stood still. He listened and tasted the wind then stepped purposefully through a copse of snowgums.

And there she was, her impossibly pale son quivering at her flank. The stallion’s nicker of greeting to the mare was low and tentative, as if she might just be a figment of his hopeful imagination. He stepped forward slowly, hooves testing the ground before he placed them. His dark muzzle stretched out in front of him, his broad convex head lowered to the same level as hers. “Myrrina.” He breathed. “For the wind, of the snow. Are you real?” The stallion was quite in awe. He had seen and collected more than his fair share of striking mares, but Myrrina was the epitome. There was none more glorious than she.

[Corowa]

A wondering sigh went through the mare, as shyly she reached out her nose and touched him. Breathless with wonderment, Myrrina blew softly through her nostrils. Slowly, Werrilah crept from her flank and curiously sniffed the strange stallion. The mare was struck by how alike were the queer white colt and silver-grey stallion. For though Werrilah was the son of Tingara, he seemed suddenly a son of the snow, a colt borne of those swirling white flakes that twinkled in his forelock as white and pure as he. Surely, some part of him belonged to this proud silver stallion, of their meeting in wind and blizzard, an unspoken promise finally fulfilled.

“I am real,” Myrrina answered gently. “As real as the wind that blows through the snowgums, and stirred memories within I had long thought forgotten.” Nimbly, Myrrina went up on her hind legs, and beside her Werrilah echoed her graceful levade, while all around them the snow still fell. Once she had danced for Tingara on the cold shores of Lake Cootapatamba, danced for him as she had thought she would dance for no other. Yet something within her longed for this white stallion, he who seemed bound to her by the snows themselves, who had come seeking her through the blizzard so she quivered with excitement and the blood ran feverish in her veins.

As one, the wise brumby mare and beautiful white colt wove a dance of promise and forgiveness. This was not the joyous dance binding Tingara to her for always. This was a dance of sorrow and loneliness, for it blended with the snow, glittering so brilliantly in their manes, and Werrilah faded into that blinding whiteness, of the sun shining so unbearably bright. Then the dance was ended, and she felt her son of the snow, warm against her flank. For always in her mind would she hold the image of her son, beautiful and shining, dancing in the snow beside her.

[Tiggs]

As real as the wind, but just as intangible. Her touch was feather-soft, and he could have imagined it. It left his nose and lips tingling as he longed for a more substantial touch. The approach of the snow-white colt managed to draw his attention for the moment, and he craned his sturdy neck to sniff at the top of the little thing’s head. There was that hint of Tingara, but he was distinctly Myrrina’s. Both their scents almost blended with the snow, making them phantoms on all his senses.

Then the mare confirmed she was real, and proceeded to disprove that by performing an ethereal dance for him. No real mare could dance like that, so light on her feet, so nimble. Nevada looked on in awe as her hooves cut the snow so delicately and she spun and reared. Her son joined, and Nevada could not move he was so enthralled. This was surely the snow playing tricks on him but when she stopped and came back to him he could feel the heat from them.

He reached out, brushing his muzzle on hers and so thrilled that he could really touch her, he stepped in closer. Moving carefully, in case one quick movement would cause her to melt away into the snow, he nuzzled her cheek and burrowed his muzzle under her mane to drink in her scent. Suddenly she was so real, and this was the closest he had ever been. She was always a wraith, so quick and stealthy; he could be forgiven for thinking her a ghost.

“You danced for me; I will never forget it. I once told you we would dance together. Will you join me?” That dance would be in his dreams forever. So beautiful; poetry in motion. “Dance with me, Myrrina, we will perform for the snow and the snow alone. It will be for us, for what was meant to be.” He rubbed his nose along the crest of her neck, eager to show her he was sincere about this. The white stallion knew how Tingara could love this mare so dearly, who could not?

[tingara]

A dark shape outlined against the thinning snowfall made its way towards the river. Tingara led the mares behind him to a place where the water had started to flow once more. Remnants of his old herd mixed with the start of a new one was what he saw when he turned to check on them. The black stallion had been leading them to the Crackenback on a whim, a rumour that Myrrina was here. Tingara needed her, without her he was always restless and felt wrong and uncomfortable, like a piece of him was missing. He dreaded sleep for she haunted his dreams, it was like a nightmare to see her dancing in front of him but whenever he tried to join her she disappeared.

If he found her he would never let her out his site again, never abandon her like he did.

Before heading off to look around, Tingara urged his mares to stay hidden. There was a sense of apprehension in the air only accentuated by the warning call of the Currawong. The black stallion shied from the bird and kicked out at a branch that brushed his flank. His heart was racing, pumping the sense of foreboding and adrenaline through his veins. Against the white of the snow he felt painfully exposed as he weaved between the gnarled gums. As best he could he tried to keep to the shadows making him look like a demonic wraith in the flurrying snowfall.

Tension began to build underneath the ebony coat as faint scents reached his nose. One was most certainly Myrrina’s and the other was Nevada’s. A strange mix of happiness and anger began to build in Tingara. He hoped that it was simply nothing more than the bush playing tricks on him. It could be that both the scents were imangined but, trusting his instincts, he crept towards where he was sure he would be downwind to whoever was out there. Voices reached his pricked ears, it was Nevada and Myrrina.

Hiding on the opposite edge of the clearing they were in Tingara was not content to stay from his mare’s side. His anger at the thieving white stallion flowed freely through him but the happiness at seeing Myrrina alive and well was overpowering. He stepped proudly from the trees and reared, pawing the air and called to the mare that was his mate. He began to dance towards her, ignoring Nevada, enticing Myrrina to join him. “Come to me the mare that I have missed with every fibre of my being, the one whom I would dance with until the end of time itself,” he called over the wind; coming up to her so close that he could touch her hindquarters.

[Corowa]

With a sigh, Myrrina turned and rested her head on his wither, trusting in him to lead her and her colt through the snowstorm. Shyly she turned and nuzzled him, blood thrilling in her veins, every nerve tingling with this wild longing. Werrilah, bound to his mother by snow and wind, felt her excitement and he gave a shrill ringing neigh, as mare and colt stood listening, ears pricked and nostrils quivering.

Only the wind answered, whispering of unseen danger as it wove its way through the rough country of the Crackenback, rustling in the leaves of the snowgums, whirling the snow about in great willy-willies so the world seemed unbearably white. Myrrina felt a cold shiver run down her backbone, for in the snow, ghostly shadows shifted and silent watchers stirred. “You are my true mate, a stallion borne by the winds and inheritor of all the mystery and beauty of the snow. For you I will dance, so come, and dance with me as I have danced with no other.”

Then dark shadow became stallion, and there stood Tingara, outlined against the falling snow. For a moment, the mare wondered if he was a ghost, so silently had he come near. Yet when he threw his throbbing call to the winds, Myrrina knew a ghost could never be so gloriously alive. Fascinated and half-afraid, Myrrina watched him, splendid King of the High Country come to claim his mare. Trembling all over, she was torn between following her mate, and following the stallion whom the blizzard itself had called.

Unable to contain herself, she whirled about to where Nevada waited. With a swift nip, she demanded Werrilah come, and the white colt followed. Suddenly fearful, Werrilah clung close to her. He worried he would lose her to the snow, worried she would vanish on the winds. Yet Myrrina did not melt into the snowgums, stood still and silent beside him and the colt could feel the dreadful pounding of her heart, and knew her to be afraid.

Half-dreaming, the mare turned to him, turned to the stallion with whom she had once shared everything, even the joy of life itself. “I cannot follow you,” she said sadly. “I was born to run with one of the snow, one who feels the call of the blizzard. I loved you deeply my mate, yet you are not the one whose blood thrums with the wildness of the wind, and for that, I cannot follow you.”

[Tiggs]

She stood with him, not shying away as she once might have. He felt her rest her head upon his wither, and he pressed his own face close to her shoulder. He let out a sighing nicker, his breath steaming in the frozen air, whipped away by eddies of the wind. The colt’s discordant call sent a chill through him, making the scene all the more thrilling and surreal. The boughs of the white sallee rustled around them, their branches weighed down with snow. It made their little clearing so secluded, and her words reached his ears like birdsong.

This must be a dream – he could barely believe she would accept him as her stallion. She had been bound to Tingara with such loyalty, but his persistence had paid off. What ever reason she had for joining him, he was more than glad for it. He was speechless with delight, and he felt like a mare might, he would follow her anywhere. “Winter is ours, my Myrrina.”

Then a shape came looming, and the whiteness of the snow made the unmistakeable shape of Tingara a featureless silhouette. Instantly on guard, the white stallion squealed his surprise and outrage. A quick glance to Myrrina found her in a trembling state of fascination. Her King had come, and Nevada suppressed the stallion urge to challenge the black King. Nevada might have the advantage in the snow, but having fought not long ago the night before, there was a fair chance the black would prevail. Somewhere on the edge of reason, he knew fighting would only drive Myrrina away, but the urge in him was strong.

He was sure Myrrina would change her mind now and return with her black stallion to the King’s herd so when she turned to him, he was ready for her farewell. When it didn’t come, he looked on in sock as she directed it instead to her former stallion. Practically dumbstruck, it took the white stallion a moment to collect his wits. When they came, he half reared and tightly circled Myrrina and her colt, ushering them with haste into the snowgums. “Like your namesake, the wind, run!” Tingara would surely kill him if he was caught, but his heart pounded with excitement with only the edge of fear. Myrrina was his! After years of futile determination, she was finally his. He couldn’t help but throw back a neigh of glory as he nipped and pushed Myrrina and the snow-white colt into a flat gallop through the impossible tree cover. No doubt tingara would be hot on his heels, and he needed all his wit to evade him.

[tingara]

Tingara was dumbstruck; he felt a pain at Myrrina’s words like no other he had felt before. It was the pain of deceit and betrayal. Anger at her choice rose in him like the sea for which he was named. She had led him on, lied to him.

“Never, call me your mate,” he said in sudden disgust, “I will let you go with him but your deceit here will not go unknown, all of the High Country will know of this. Know how you betrayed the King and his trust for a coward and a thief. He does not want you for who you are, he wants you simply because you are, or were, mine. It won’t be long until another mare comes along and you are no longer special. You will not be the only one he dances for not like I was for you. You will eventually be just another part of the background of his herd when your novelty value has run its course. The mares of his herd are only collected because of their colouring or if they were once mine. Do you not see the vanity this stallion possess?” he said dangerously quiet. The black could see the faint outline of the grey through the snow and every instinct wanted him to kill Nevada.

“I only hope our son has not inherited any of your qualities. You who are a liar and a mistress of deceit, I will never dance with you again Myrrina and I will see to it that no other stallion will want you. When you have realised the mistake you have made, not I nor anyone else will take you,” these were his final words to the mare he had once thought he would dance with forever. They were words of bitterness and a new, unadulterated hatred even he was shocked at. Never in his life had he thought he would be feeling like he was towards Myrrina.

The wind bore him Nevada’s wish for Myrrina to run and before she could react Tingara had pushed his way past her and was on the grey stallion’s heals. The anger gave him a deeper will to catch the other and it was only encouraged by Nevada’s call of glory. After Tingara was finished with him there would not be another call like that from the grey for a long while. Every fibre of his being wanted to kill Nevada but no, Tingara had a better idea. He would beat Nevada to within an inch of his life but he would leave him alive. By the time he was through with Nevada he would fear Tingara and be left with no mare but Myrrina. It would be their price to pay for crossing the King.

“Fight me or are you once again going to live up to your reputation, O’ great coward of the High Country?” mocked the black stallion, biting hard at the white hide as he drew level. Never would the white stallion out run him, Tingara’s breeding and litheness made sure of that. Nevada may have thought the snow was his element but he had discounted the fact that you didn’t have to be the colour of it to be able to move through it well. With practised ease Tingara weaved through the trees with Nevada but tired of it.

“You are a coward, afraid of the consequences that come with your actions. Take me back to your herd so they may see their great leader run from the King. I would say the only fights you’ve ever won were against horses twice as young as yourself,” Tingara teased maliciously in an attempt to get the white stallion to face him so he might deliver the retribution he deserved. Again pulling up level with the white stallion, the black attempted to clamp his teeth down firmly on his wither. If they stuck and Nevada kept running, Tingara might just land himself with a nice lot of Nevada’s flesh.