There will be other horses. Brigan will help her choose them, and Hanna will name them. Some of them may even be similarly dim, and love her just as well. Fire understands these things, though they are no comfort. She is barely able to comprehend the loss of Small; the possibility of the loss of these two people catches in her throat and chokes her. Or her sobs choke her. Fire is no longer sure she could separate out these things into discrete events.
Holding a scrap of saddle blanket, a piece of a spare left behind in his stall in King's City, Fire allows herself to mourn her first and sometimes only friend. It is over. It is over. And now there is time to mourn.
