Snow Mountain

- 7 -

Jalintu's laughter followed the herdsman into the next room, but to his relief, the woman herself did not.

He threw his bundled clothes to the floor and dressed quickly. One glove was missing, no doubt left behind on the floor of his room, but he went out into the snow without it.

It was not long before dawn, and a faint green light lit the east. But the stars could still be seen, bright pins holding up the tent of the sky.

The air was frigid, incredibly cold, so clear it seemed it could break, like glass. Or water, when a pebble is thrown into it. Fyar's breath came in huge white clouds, cascading over his beard and catching there like dew, then like frost.

The cold cleared his head.

He had not expected Jalintu's visit. He had noticed her watching him, felt her eyes following him, but had assumed it was from wariness and distrust after all she had suffered.

Now he realized he had been wrong. His face burned, and not only from the cold. Embarrassment and shame, at misjudging her, at the way he had fled just now, combined with the sting of the frigid mountain air to turn his cheeks bright red beneath his frosty beard.

In addition to the shame was a sadness, a loneliness he could not quite explain.

Why? After a thousand years of solitude, why feel lonely now when there is a beautiful woman wanting you in your bed?

The herdsman thought of how quickly Jalintu had recovered. Had gone from flinching at his touch to craving the warmth of his skin. Had gone from fear to trust to desire.

He wanted to feel scorn for such fickleness, such a quick change of the heart. But in truth he felt only admiration and envy. He supposed humans, for all their violence and fault, could be admired for other qualities. Their resilience, their adaptability. Their reckless tendency to hope.

And here you still stand upon your lonely mountain, caring for nothing more than your goats.

Sighing, he turned to return to the caves.

*~*~*~*~*~*

The rest of the day, the herdsman was not sure how to regard the woman he had taken in.

Jalintu followed him about his daily routine as she always did, assisting with chores, nothing but the faint smile about her lips giving any indication she recalled the night before.

While noting her smile, Fyar also observed her lips were a very soft shade of pink, like a river shell's smooth inner side.

I wonder if they'd feel as smooth.

Catching himself in the thought, the herdsman quickly refocused on his current work, pulling briars from Thymonos's coat.

"You're more trouble than you're worth," he grumbled to the old whether, who bleated back.

Jalintu, holding the goat's head to keep him still, laughed and stroked Thymonos's nose fondly.

"He only found you," Fyar grumbled with mock discontent. "And yet he gets such treatment? I'm the one who took you in and clothed and fed you."

Jalintu's eyes when she looked up were merry, and the smile about her lips promised much more, if he would only let her.

The herdsman swallowed and quickly looked away.

After that, it was hard not to become acutely aware of a hundred other little details he had somehow neglected before.

The silver-white of her hair, the way the short strands curled about her ears. The curve of her jaw, and the slender lines of her neck. Her lithe fingers, and the way they deftly learned whatever he taught her. Her laughter, her smile, the mischief in her sea-colored eyes.