Hestar – [09.27.10]
Iceland leaned against the window, trying to make out anything, let alone a person, through the reflections on the glass. He was rather annoyed that Norway had insisted on dropping by and hadn't gotten here yet. That was a waste of an evening. He'd put aside his chores and wasted all his time for nothing. He felt that if the man was going to visit him, however infrequently he did, he should at least attempt to communicate if he wasn't going to come. This was the age of information, and the boy hadn't even received a text message.
Tired of waiting, he sighed, pulled on a navy-and-white sweater and went outside to get his chores done. The horses were waiting at the pasture fence for their dinner; there another pang of annoyance towards Norway for making his horses wonder what had happened to him. The boy heard rapid flapping and tilted his head a bit so his puffin could perch on his shoulder without cuffing his ear. He knew that'd happen if he didn't move; Mr. Puffin was not very spatially aware, he had found out the hard way. He reached up a hand to scratch the bird's head and continued on a little more carefully.
He then picked up one of the water buckets and brought it over to the old-fashioned well pump, half-humming and half-singing softly one of Jónsi's songs—Kolniður, appropriately enough, for how dark it was getting—as he went about trying to work the thing. It screeched and stuck horribly, despite leaning against it with all of his weight. He made a mental note to oil the darned thing later. After a few failed tries, he finally got the arm to budge.
He was out of breath and wasn't cold anymore when the water bucket was full. He bent down carefully, as not to dislodge Mr. Puffin, and picked up the bucket, carrying it carefully back towards the light of the barn. The rest of the calm routine was cut short.
Iceland gave a strangled shout, panicking as two arms wrapped around his stomach, startling him to his senses. He flinched instinctively, and drenched himself with most of the water from the bucket. His puffin protested loudly, fluttering off of Iceland's shoulder and onto the eaves of the barn, fluttering and ruffling his feathers indignantly. Twisting around, he saw Norway's emotionless face, reflected eerily in the light from the barn.
"I came to see you, Ice." he said monotonously.
"I-I gathered," Iceland replied, still recoiling from the scare. "You're really freakin' late."
"I know, I was busy—"
"Well, now I'm busy! So let me finish what I was doing!"
Iceland huffed and with shaking hands pried Norway's arms off of him as he stormed away into the barn, and put on a more pleasant face before leaning on the stall door to cluck to his horses. He saw, one by one, fuzzy faces and fluffy manes as they walked and trotted into the stalls.
All the nations—or all the nations he knew, anyway—kept horses just fifty years ago, even, but most had moved on with changing technologies. Iceland loved his horses, and still kept a few around because he couldn't bring himself to give up the old way of living entirely. Plus, they were better than most cars at traversing his country anyway, in his opinion; it was quite mountainous, and the horses knew instinctively how to get around. As much as his people loved their cars, his own opinion of them was sullied when he took his first car ride clutching the seat in Denmark's car, lost and driving at breakneck speed along twisting mountain roads.
Ljúfa was the first to poke her head into a stall; she was perhaps the most striking, if not the most outgoing of his four horses. She was a silver dapple; her coat was marked in shades of gray— to Iceland, all the colors of cooled lava, with dapples like the colors of the ash— and her mane was off-white, not unlike Iceland's own hair.
The mare was followed by a liver chestnut, simply named Rauðsokki, who immediately put his head down and snorted as he found no hay in his stall.
His half-brother, Sævar, was entirely black with only a white stripe on his face, with the ends of his overgrown mane and tail bleached copper by the sun. Sævar and Hrímur, a leggy dapple grey, both trotted into separate stalls as well. Iceland then went to close the gates to the pasture from the outside.
He returned to the barn to see Norway standing in the aisle with his arms crossed. Iceland glanced at him, but he couldn't tell what Norway's expression—or lack thereof—meant. He ignored the man and went to go get four flakes of hay, and put one in each stall. He could feel his brother's stare on his back as he went about his work. After he was finished, he leaned over the top of one of the stall doors, thinking about things. It was eerily quiet except for the quiet munching of hay, and the swishing of manes and tails.
"Is that one.. Hrímur?"
Iceland looked to see Norway leaning over the same stall, looking at the silver dapple. Iceland shook his head. "That's Ljúfa…" he said, perplexed. He looked at the brass plate on the stall. HRÍMUR. "They don't always go into their own stalls."
"Oh."
Silence.
Iceland crossed his arms tighter, sighing. "This mare is Ljúfa. The chestnut is Rauðsokki—"
"Red socks?" Norway answered, perplexed.
"Red and socks. He has two white socks, on his front legs.
"Oh."
"And the white one's Hrímur," Iceland continued. "And the black one is Sævar."
Norway's expression changed subtly. "Sævar?"
"Mhm. The black one."
Norway shook his head, and paused for a moment. "Sea…something?"
Iceland sighed; naturally, his brother would pay more attention to the name than to the horse himself.
"Yes, it means 'seaman.' Well, that's a bad translation, but something like that anyway."
He was pondering for a better way to put it when Norway offered, in an amused tone, "…Viking?"
The boy rolled his eyes. "I suppose. Sævar, koma hér," He said, clucking to the horse.
The gelding's head popped up as he heard his name, his eyes covered comically by his thick forelock. A few more clucks. The horse walked up to the edge of the stall, still munching on hay hanging out the side of his mouth. He reached out his white nose, tinged pink around the edges from the sun. Iceland reached out and rubbed the horse's soft nose. Norway reached out a hand tentatively. Sævar blew on it, and then swung his head away. Norway's hand dropped, and his eyebrow twitched in confusion.
Iceland chuckled. Norway glanced and him and then back at the horse, who returned with another mouthful of hay to munch on. Iceland couldn't help smiling at his brother's awkwardness. There weren't many time in which Norway didn't look calm and composed; it was an odd and slightly amusing sight to see.
Norway reached out his hand again, and rubbed the white stripe on the gelding's nose. Sævar nickered. The man stopped petting him, drawing his hand back.
"That means he's happy," Iceland said.
"Oh."
"You should know that, silly, you've kept horses before."
"...I know."
Iceland reached out and rubbed the gelding's nose, combing through the rough tangle of forelock and brushing away remnants of his half-shed summer coat. The gelding snorted and tossed his head. "None of that," Iceland murmured, and leaned over to kiss the horse's nose. The gelding whickered and snorted, and went back to his hay.
Iceland watched the horse eat fondly for a minute, and then realized that Norway was looking at him with a smile.
"Your horses… are really nice." He said, somehow managed to keep himself composed. Iceland wondered why he seemed to be fighting for the right thing to say.
"Of course they are. What is up with you?" Iceland said, perplexed.
Norway sighed, at a loss for words. He didn't want to insult something that meant so much to his little brother.
Iceland took it as an answer. "We still need to fetch some water, then."
His brother smiled briefly—a rare, real smile—before picking up the bucket and walking back out to the well.