Stories West

- Survivor -

She rode quietly along the road.

As she made her way towards town it was clear she was no rider, yet she held the reins as if to mimic someone who did. Her clothes were like that of any other market-goer, though she wore a tattered robe around her. The cloth bore symbols of a language unknown on these plains.

She rode in on a horse that wasn't hers. One might've called her sunkissed, though it was clear that the sun was no lover of hers. Hands cracked, hair short and matted; how long she had travelled. She seemed so very distant. Her eyes bore sign of an exhausted soul. It was as if the horse was the captain of her path, herself only a leaf carried by water to new places down the creek.

Only few came to greet her, she greeted only one. There was no exchange of words as he stood before her, yet they seemed to tell each other of their worlds through a single glimpse.

Then she closed her eyes. And she fell.

- Raven Hair -

He had found the lost horse wandering on his land late in the evening and had knocked on the door early morning to return it. How peculiar that the creature would turn up out here.

Rumours went quickly that the horse had not wandered into town like he had told, rather that it was the one stolen from the next town over. Rumours that he very well knew.

Midnight whispers had it that he had carried her to his home. Only glimpses of her were seen through his windows. They asked, he declined, and no one knew more of her than that.

No one knew much of him either. He had himself a piece of land, bought a few years ago. He never smiled or sang or drank or fought, never did more in town than he had to, never said much about anything to anyone. That was the way of him.

- Time -

Days passed as the town grew more curious. How he was eyed when he came into town. How the glimpses at her through his windows became a game.

Then they were gone.

His house was found empty as had he vanished into the earth. There were no signs that anyone but him had lived there, and all stood as he had left it. Only a note on his door that the cows were free to take. Only his long braided hair and an engraved knife on the terrace table. His land breathed in silence; it did not know of his return.

- Souls -

Many whiles passed.

The town forgot she had ever come.

That he had ever been.

New scars. New names. His hair kept short, her robe now too small around her growing life. Had the two visitors never asked to see the house, I never would have realised.

The home was that of ghosts and small animals. No one had dared enter, nothing moved the slightest since she had stayed. All things wither, though he saw them as they were. I joined them on their journey through the old things and treasures as he told me the stories no one else would ever get to hear. She showed me the things she had first brought here, hidden under the mattress of his guest room bed. He handled the old knife with skill as he cut out the canvases of the living room’s paintings. She pulled out books from his shelf. This they continued until the home had been put into saddlebags and sacks.

I stayed behind as they left for the field. No cattle had grazed since then, and so the fields were in bloom. He had let the horses out to graze, and she shooed them away from the prettiest of the flowers. He added the stray ones to her braid as she wove him a crown. They sat and talked there in the grass. He pulled her to his side.

And he laughed.

The beautiful engraved knife, colours untouched by the wind and rain. A gift from his father. He gave it to me.

And then they left.

Two strangers I knew.

The black horse long owned. 

The red horse fairly bought.

She followed him as before.

He rode quietly along the road.