Chest first, the lone rider and the horse drove forward out of the forest with speed and power. The path veered the horse to the right and they cut along the edge of the treeline, the rider’s cape whipping at the turn. The horse’s legs had been shaking miles back, but determination had overpowered weakness and now the two felt as if they were flying.
The rider leaned in. Heart: a steady drum, all flesh and bone engaged and poised. The rider’s eyes peered forward as if targeting an infinitely distant star. Thoughts: empty. All attention was on pressing, pressing against wind that pressed firmly back, catching on the rider’s ear like thunder.
Further down the road, a small cottage became visible. They picked up a final sprint, defying their own limitations for a few, blazing moments.
Then, they stopped. The cottage stood before them, and all they could hear was their own coursing blood and their own breath delving desperately into the well of oxygen in the still air.
The cottage was surrounded by shadows, cast by nothing at all. Without a plan, or a thought, the rider dismantled and stepped into the darkness.
The door of the cottage creaked open, revealing a small elder in simple clothes, standing like an oak tree, both weathered and strong. She crossed the rocky path towards the rider, her calloused feet like their own kind of moccasins, she walked straight up to the face of the rider, staring with eyes that glowed like two warm embered coals.
Upon being seen, the rider was immediately overcome with doubt. The rider’s breath quivered. Perhaps it was terribly, embarrassingly silly to have rode so far, so hard, for an unknown purpose. Why had they come?
Still caught in the embered eyes of the elder, the rider muttered “I...someone was calling.”
The elder took the rider by the hand, and guided her into the cottage. In the darkness, in the stillness, in the emptiness of the cottage, a glint of light like two embers began to glow deep within the rider’s eyes.
©2020 by Shelsea Ochoa. All rights reserved.