Willfur
Thana leads and he follows, peering around her deep red shoulders to memorize landmarks, turns, small changes in footing or plant life that might help him learn the way. As she picks up speed the stallion hangs back a moment, lowering his head to sniff at their overlapping hoofprints, curious, as always.
His is familiar and ordinary in every way, just a nondescript, shallow crescent in the soft soil, but hers is like an artists perfect rendering of hoof anatomy. Every detail is visible, as if the very particles of the earth gave way beneath her, shrinking back from even that brief span of contact. There's the curve of her toe, the twin bulbs of her heels, the triangular 'frog' that helps to circulate blood throughout the hooves when she walks. Even the small imperfections in her soles are clearly visible. Inhaling, it smells of dry, dead grass and dehydrated dirt.
A crease spreads across the mules wide brow as he hurries to catch up, ears splitting one to either side in thought. He's encountered magic before, but it's a subject with such undefinable terms. There are no set-in-stone rules, no absolute truths or provable anything. It does what it wants and often laughs in the face of science and logic, so he knows better than to try parsing it out, but still, he can observe and maybe get lucky once in a while in noticing a small detail or correlation.
He wonders if this - draining, aging, killing - magic is hers in form and function, hers by choice, or if it's something that's been put upon her. Can she control it? Or does its effect control her? It would be so easy to let something like that isolate her and he doesn't think she deserves to be isolated. He doesn't think anyone does, but before he's decided whether or not to broach the subject at all, she halts, turning to him with the barest suggestion of a smile pulling at the corners of her lips.
They're here!
Glancing past, he's a little taken aback. He'd expected some huge, stone structure and the library hidden somewhere within, secret and shielded from the elements, but the trees themselves huddle close, swelling and leaning in until they create walls and a roof and rooms as organized and structurally sound as any he's ever seen consciously created. It's an amazing marriage of nature and intelligent design.
Even the enormous door looks entirely organic, its front intricately woven with branches and vines that curl, twist, and braid into vibrant motifs. He's already examining the jambs, trying to see what the hinge mechanisms are made of and how they work, when he realizes that the mare is leaving. "Thana!" He calls, startled by the sudden parting and genuinely sad to see her go. "Thank you."
Maybe it says more about his inner workings than it does hers, but he'd seen her brighten since they first met, she'd smiled, and he can't help feeling that once she slips away into the dark she'll stop smiling. "I'll do that."
@Thana
