by Lynn Mann
The thought that age could make a Kindred look any less threatening to humans who were unaccustomed to the sight of them made us all chortle – including Mother Elder when she picked up on our thoughts – but we appreciated her sentiment and her care in making her selections. We were also thankful for the rest of the community’s thoughtfulness in either putting themselves forward as candidates to come with us or standing back in the knowledge that others would be better suited to the task than they.
We left the Shady Mountain community with regret at not taking them all with us and a deep hope that before long, we would be sending for them to join us at Rockwood and its surrounding villages. The community would make its way south to its winter settlement in the autumn as usual and would wait to hear from us, although Mother Elder would be keeping them, as well as the Elders of the other communities, informed of our progress.
The Kindred made far better time than we Horse-Bonded and our horses for the first few days. We would see them up into the trees first thing in the morning and watch them swinging and leaping off into the distance, marvelling at how fast they were – even Foxstep and Mother Elder – while we began our slow walk downhill over ground that was soft and more giving than to be easily negotiable for the horses whilst both descending and weaving between closely growing trees. The horses insisted that their difficulty was made no greater by carrying us on their backs, yet we all walked alongside them, preferring not to add our weight to that of our baggage. Fitt walked alongside Flame and none of us thought to question her decision to walk with her horse rather than to travel with ease and speed through the trees.
We would catch up with Mother Elder and Foxstep sometime during the afternoon as they rested from their exertions of the morning and then we would all continue together on foot until we came across the other five Kindred sometime in the early evening. They would already have a fire going and would have dinner hunted, gathered, cooked and waiting for us on the flat stones that they always managed to find to surround their fires.
It was a constant source of amazement to the humans of our group that the Kindred were so efficient at providing for themselves in the absence of any equipment – in fact they carried no baggage at all with the exception of Fitt, who was rarely without the bow and arrows that Marvel had once gifted to her, strapped to her back.
The first time that Fitt was Aware of our admiration for the Kindreds’ survival abilities, she was quick to exclude herself from it, reminding us with a grin of how and why we had first befriended her. Flame was equally quick to remind Fitt of how she had brought down a wild cat in order to save her horse’s life. Hunting well and with consideration for one’s prey was a matter of self-trust and self-belief, Flame informed her Bond-Partner firmly, of which Fitt now had both in unlimited amounts, so it would no longer be a problem.
It was slightly strange to be party to a prey animal giving a predator hunting advice, but so had the lines blurred between us all, I realised. Kindred, human, horse, prey, predator – none of those descriptions had much of a place in who and what we now were to one another.
As the forest floor levelled out and the trees became more widely spaced, the going became easier. We could all feel the rise in temperature now that we had finished our descent, and I was glad for Foxstep and Mother Elder that we would remain under cover of the trees; the real heat of summer may have passed, but it was still warm enough to cause them problems during the daylight hours. For the first few hours of the day, we and the Kindred above us leap-frogged each other, with them going away in front of us when we were forced to go slowly, then us overtaking them as we rode the horses with bursts of speed through the more open sections of the woodland. By mid-morning, Mother Elder and Foxstep were forced to the ground to walk, in order for their bodies not to overheat from exertion.
‘At least we walk more comfortably now that we walk tall.’ Mother Elder made light of the situation over dinner one day. ‘However, I regret that we are slowing you all down.’
‘When I first bonded with Infinity and we were making our way to The Gathering to learn from the other Horse-Bonded, we couldn’t go very quickly, either,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t ride her without causing her a problem...’
‘Not to mention that you broke your arm the first time you tried,’ interrupted Rowena with a wink.
‘...so she had to walk at my pace when we were on the move, and she couldn’t travel for as long each day as I would have done on my own because she needed to graze where she could.’ I paused to stick my tongue out at Rowena. ‘It seemed to take us forever to get anywhere, but during that time, we got to know one another, we bonded, so it was a good thing, really.’
Everyone nodded.
‘It’s hard to imagine that there was a time when you couldn’t ride Infinity, seeing the two of you together now,’ said Harperleaf, shyly. ‘I mean you’re not even two anymore, are you?’
‘Oh, believe me, there was a time when Amarilla couldn’t sit on Infinity for longer than ten minutes without either collapsing in tears or being thrown off, usually in front of an audience,’ said Rowena with a cheeky grin.
I nodded. ‘Harsh, but true.’
‘But a bit of a simplification of the situation,’ said Justin, flooding his thoughts with the events that had followed my and Infinity’s arrival at The Gathering.
None of it was news to Mother Elder, but the other Kindred explored his memories avidly.
‘Rowena selects aspects of the truth to use in her teasing, which she uses as a mask for the depth of her affection,’ Harperlake observed, thoughtfully, looking at Rowena as if she were a bug on his finger that he’d never seen before.
‘That’s not the only time she homes in on mere aspects of the truth,’ said Marvel. ‘You’ll find that out sometime soon, when she decides that you’ve transgressed.’
‘And you invite Rowena to tease you because you know that she finds it difficult to tell you of her affection as a result of losing her previous mate,’ said Harperleaf. ‘You reciprocate with the same kind of teasing because you know that she finds it easier to receive that form of affection from you than a more overt display.’ Her eyes roved over Marvel as she spoke, drinking in all details of him physically as well as in her Awareness.
Rowena and Marvel looked at one another. Rowena shrugged and nodded and Marvel held his hands out, palms upwards, in front of him.
‘Rumbled,’ Marvel said, simply. ‘I’m devastated.’
‘No, you aren’t. You’re amused and delighted,’ said Levitsson, staring at Marvel intensely.
‘Welcome to the complexity of human behaviour,’ said Sonja. ‘We do this a lot, I’m afraid.’
‘Use a behaviour to give the impression of feeling one way, to mask the fact that you’re actually feeling something else? Isn’t that a little counterproductive, not to mention time-consuming?’ Foxstep asked.
‘Yep!’ Aleks said. ‘And believe it or not, we’re the least complicated examples of human beings, you know with us being Aware and everything. Just so you know, you won’t meet many people in the villages who will take your observations of their behaviour as easily as Ro and Marv just did. If you point out the real meanings of what most people say, they’ll be embarrassed and furious with you.’
‘For trying to help them to know themselves?’
‘Yes,’ said Vickery. ‘Humans lie to themselves continually and they won’t thank you for pointing it out.’
‘Except for us. We’re more than happy for you to do it,’ said Marvel.
‘Because you know that in reality, it doesn’t matter,’ observed Levitsson.
‘Exactly. But the humans you will meet don’t yet know that this is just a dream that they have chosen to dream while they are remembering their oneness with All That Is. And until you’ve helped them to remember, you’ll find that they accept you far more easily if you don’t point out in public the things that they lie to themselves about, in fact it would be best not to do it at all,’ said Justin.
‘But you, however, will appreciate my observation that you and your mate are so at one with your horses and with one another that you allow the boundaries that define you to blur far more than your friends do,’ Levitsson told Justin.
‘Eloquently put,’ said Justin.
‘Is this us all bonding? Because I feel like we’re bonding,’ Aleks said.
‘You use your previous history of trailing behind your friends to pretend that you still understand less than they do, when in fact you understand at least as much,’ observed Levitsson with a fanged grin.
Aleks chuckled, nodding. ‘I do! I absolutely do that!’
The following days and weeks followed the same routine. We moved at speed during the mornings and then when Mother Elder and Foxstep tired, we Horse-Bonded and our horses walked with them while the other five went on ahead, hunting and gathering as they went, so that by the time we caught up with them, they had made camp for the evening and a meal awaited us. We would talk into the night, as one big group or in smaller groups, getting to know one another more as we prepared for our arrival at Rockwood.
Infinity knew what I knew as I learnt it, just as I knew exactly what she was grazing, when she stopped to groom with one of the others or rest and where she was. We didn’t just share minds anymore, we were the same mind, capable of just knowing what we knew without any of it burdening us or even interesting us, particularly. We had a job to do and we were doing it. When our bodies worked together as one as we travelled during the day, we didn’t bother to compare it with a past that we couldn’t remember. As Levitsson had observed, what little boundary there had been between us was becoming more and more hazy, as was that between us and Justin and Gas.
I was Aware of Mother Elder’s concern about the matter on a number of occasions. She worried that Justin and I would become too disinterested to be of use to the mission that we had once felt so important to undertake. Whenever I felt her apprehension, I invited her to feel the purpose that hummed through all of us, that had originated with Gas and Infinity reminding Justin and me of our choice to be here, to help. It anchored us all to our mission, regardless of our inclination to completely be our oneness rather than just being Aware of it.
Humans and Kindred came to know each other well. We found Lacemore and Ashwell to be a devoted couple and extremely proud parents. They had worried when Fitt went off on her Findself. They had known that her lack of belief in her hunting ability could prove her downfall, despite all of the time that fierce, confident Ashwell had spent with her, helping her to improve her commitment to bringing down prey so that her fear of causing suffering could be laid to one side. Never had they envisaged that she would find such a unique solution to her problem as to accept help from humans, with the chain of consequences that had ultimately followed. They watched her every move with reverence and they adored Flame, who quickly became used to having three of them caring for her needs once we stopped for the evening.
Ashwell learnt to be quieter and more measured in his movements around Flame if he wanted her to remain near him. Lacemore learnt to be less concerned about the impact of her size and physical attributes on Flame and more definite with her strokes when she groomed her, so as to be more effective and less of an irritation. It wasn’t lost on anyone that Flame’s influence on Fitt’s parents would help them to integrate more easily into human society and Fitt couldn’t have been prouder of the three of them.
Foxstep could be grumpy, but he was observant and wise and he had taken to heart Aleks’s warning about being careful with the sensitivities of humans once we reached Rockwood. He took it upon himself to search our minds for the information needed to school Levitsson and the Harper siblings regularly on the matter, ensuring that they knew what would and wouldn’t be helpful to say.
Harperlake and Harperleaf were always reserved but they were interested in everything that we could tell them or show them in our thoughts and they quickly learnt whatever they wanted from us. To begin with, they were rarely apart, but as time went on, Harperleaf could often be found in quiet conversation with Holly or Sonja, whilst Harperlake observed and smiled at the banter that was always part of the conversation wherever Marvel, Aleks or Levitsson were.
Levitsson was hilarious. He flouted the human taboo of voicing the truth behind actions and words with precision timing, frequently leaving us in stitches. He always assured Foxstep that he was taking seriously his schooling as to what to say to ‘regular humans’, as he called them, but he had such a mischievous glint in his eye whenever he used his humour on us that we all found it hard to believe he would be able to completely restrain his conversation to appropriate topics once in Rockwood.
Mother Elder became as dear to my heart as she was to my soul. She watched over us all, unobtrusively but consistently, even when it was she who needed looking after. When the days cooled as they welcomed autumn, she and Foxstep could swing and leap through the trees well into the afternoon, but at a cost. When they dropped to walk on the forest floor, neither of them could hide their winces as their already tired and aching bodies received their final jolt of the day. We knew exactly the extent of Foxstep’s discomfort as his grumpiness tended to be in direct proportion, but Mother Elder bore the tiredness, soreness and stiffness of her ageing body with silent determination. As we walked, she distracted herself by contacting the other Elders and updating them on progress regarding both our journey and what she and the other Kindred of our group were learning from us.
No information is wasted, she informed me, one never knows when it may be useful.
I saw her point, and soon found myself following her example. Quinta was delighted when I suggested a regular catch up with her so that she could pass on everything we were learning from our time with our Kindred friends to all at The Gathering; when the villagers began to accept the idea of Kindred integrating into their societies, the Horse-Bonded would be needed to help it happen on a large scale and the more they knew in advance of that time, the better.
Quinta was itching to leave The Gathering, but she was resigned to the fact that for now, she was needed there to organise the Horse-Bonded into working groups – groups of those who were newly Aware and overwhelmed by the sensory input that they were now receiving; groups of those whose horses had achieved perfect balance without them and wanted help to achieve the same; groups of those who were centred and could therefore help the other groups. Quinta’s task seemed endless and complicated. I realised that it was just one of the many ripples spreading out from the vortex within which my friends and I had been swirling.
Change begets change, Infinity and I observed mildly. And the greater the change, the stronger the force that is needed to set it into motion. We have been that force. And that must also change.
I looked over at Fitt as she sat astride Flame, animatedly discussing the future of the Kindred and human races with Holly, Sonja and Aleks. Her passion and determination, fuelled by Flame’s, was creating a new swirl of change. A swirl that was gaining momentum. A swirl that would be the centre of a new vortex – her vortex. I smiled, wearily.
As the leaves blew from the branches, and raindrops reached us more easily and frequently, the days, and therefore our travelling time, became much shorter. We stuck to the trees as much as we could for ease of movement for the Kindred, but where a shortcut took us across pasture or scrubland, we took it. Almost the second we left the trees, our horses, glad to have the space in which to open up, took to leaping into a gallop, whilst I and my fellow Horse-Bonded whooped with unabandoned joy. It was always Flame and Gas who sped away from the rest of us, their long chestnut legs taking them at what to the rest of us seemed impossible speed, but Infinity was always next in line. Our hearts danced in time as we skimmed the ground, following the orange tails that streamed in front of us, beckoning us to find ever more speed.
By the time we were forced to slow down by the sight of more trees in front of us, our horses’ sides would be heaving and we riders would
all be breathless and sightless from the tears that had protected our eyes from the onslaught of the cold autumn air.
While we waited for our Kindred friends to catch up with us, we would unsaddle the horses so that they could roll and gambol around on their own, enjoying the novelty of plentiful grass and space. On one such occasion, as we perched on some boulders on the side of a hill in the autumn sunshine, a wild herd entered our Awareness. They were hidden by the hills, yet not far away. They knew who we were and they knew who were our travelling companions, yet they would approach us. Our own horses grazed, rolled and groomed one another without concern or even much notice, so we shrugged and awaited our first sight of both the wild horses and our Kindred friends.
It wasn’t long before we felt the boulders beneath us vibrating with the pounding of nearby hooves. Our horses all looked up with pricked ears and Infinity whinnied, shrilly. She was answered by the dark brown lead mare of the wild herd as she appeared over the brow of the hill. The herd slowed as one to a collected canter as they passed our horses, who, as one, fell in with them. They all moved off as one mass of brown, white, black, chestnut and dun, in their slow, perfectly balanced, rhythmic canter. They turned as one, slowed as one, sped up as one, sat on their haunches to release their front legs into the air as one, before powering elegantly back into canter, as one. There wasn’t a sound in the autumn air other than the rhythmic beat of hooves on earth as they performed their beautiful, hypnotic dance.
I felt the strength of Lacemore’s and Mother Elder’s emotion and looked across the hillside to where the Kindred had appeared and were as entranced as the rest of us as we watched the horses rejoice. They had advanced as a species. They hadn’t done it by avoiding or attempting to destroy those who had held them back, but by engaging with us, helping us and accepting our help in return. And now they demonstrated the joy of what they had achieved. Of what the Kindred and human races would achieve if we stayed our course.
