5.Death of Chaos
CIV
I DIDN'T KNOW what I expected, but the blue and white flowers waving in the sod roof of the waystation were still there, although they seemed mostly gray in the late twilight. The spring was unchanged, and the waystation itself looked no different with the holes in the roof and its doorless entry.
Yet, solid as the old walls were, the waystation seemed fragile.
I looked around the long valley, from the western rim, where orange from the vanished sun still glimmered, to the winding road we had traveled both east and west. Beyond the darkened eastern horizon, I could sense clouds and chaos.
Slowly, I dismounted. Gairloch didn't even whinny, and I hugged him for a moment, just for being there and being dependable.
“He likes you, too,” said Dayala from the dimness beside me.
I probably blushed, but answered, “He's good and strong and dependable.”
“You often put his care before your own,” she continued.
“He's in my care. He doesn't have a choice.”
“But he does. He could throw you, or bolt, or refuse to eat.”
I hadn't thought horses, or ponies, considered such choices, but Dayala was a druid. “Oh?”
“He wouldn't think that. Ponies don't think the way we do. He would just do it,” she clarified.
That made sense. I began to unsaddle him, not quickly, because I was tired.
Dayala looked at me in the gloom, probably far more tired than I was. “Krystal's not a pony.”
“What?” I wasn't thinking too clearly. What did Krystal have to do with being a pony?
“You can't protect her from everything. If you protect her too much, then you protect her from being close to you.” She nodded and led her mount over to where Justen was grooming Rosefoot.
I groomed Gairloch mechanically, trying to understand what Dayala had said, but the words kept slipping through my mind, except I knew Krystal wasn't a pony.