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He stood beside the horse, lead in his hand. The dark stallion did not need the guidance of the tether, yet Alder had learned with the ways of a halter and lead, of saddle and tack. The large beast looked handsome in the carefully repaired leather; the elk skin blanket that lined his back and the braids that Alder had placed in his mane. It was not the way of all riders, but Alder’s choice. He tightened the lines that held his dead prizes upon the croup of the stallions back. They had spent the night camped beside the embers that would be nothing more then ash in a few moment's time, and morning lingered in the lightening sky.
Blue eyes looked out into the distance, the mountain stood at his right as he traveled steadily north and the world in which he was familiar sat behind him. It was the most north Alder had ever traveled and thus far in his life he was on his greatest adventure. The thought, when he allowed himself to think about the dangers of the road, made his stomach twist slightly. His gut told him to return to the Court, to take the things that he had gathered and go home. But he was fighting his fears, and Hawthorn encouraged him. Some how the horse knew that there was something yet for them to find.
Black fingers ran through the cut mane of the male, chest breathing in the cool late winter air. The pair had caught hares in the pass below the mountain, Alder had eaten well, had not run into any creature that wished to do him farm nor stumbled upon a pack land. His experience in Inferni had taught him to be extra diligent, and he kept his distance from any scent of pack territory. In the cerulean eyes he shared with his brother and mother, Alder was successful.
Marching on, the Courtier mounted the stallion and sat straight on the saddle he had mended. With a short word in the horse’s dialect Alder asked for him to walk on.
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