Dusk was starting to cast its shadows over the plains when Gwendolyn left the cottage.
That was the moment of the day she had been waiting for since her waking hour.
The “important family matters” to which she had been forced to attend and torturing her to no end through the day were finally over. It was Gwen’s time now, the time when she could finally let her thoughts wander free. The way she was used to do before her family moved the current location: to the land or Ériu.
She left for her late afternoon walk with no goal, heading west. Her only and clear intent was to put some distance between her and the mansion where those little and meaningless family dramas were taking place. Before she could even realize it, however, she found herself spectator of the most amusing scene she could possibly see.
A girl her age apparently talking alone while feeding a pouting and skeptical bay. None of the two very young women knew what a life changer that moment was going to be. Not wanting to interrupt the interlude between the girl and the horse, devoured by a girlish curiosity that never existed within her, she hurried to find a spot offering her a better view, trying to hid herself at the same time, as the girl and the horse appeared in her field of view.
Her curious mind started working on her own right away, making her forget the whole day and the world, driving her to do whatever she could in order to be blessed with the view of that odd couple acting in what seemed to be much more interesting than the boring and baroque Victorian book she held in her hands and took with her for the walk, as a lifesaver from her utterly boring day.
Adventurous as she was, the thing became immediately the center of her universe.
“Oooh this must be the reward for the day of imprisonment!” she thought.
Spectator of that duet, her emerald lively green eyes contrasting with her red curly hair , she could not stop leaping from the girl to the horse, to then back on Una’s hands.
In those tiny hands she spotted a carrot. The whole thing made her live the same feelings she experienced the time when she was six years old and her mother took her to the market, that day her eyes stole the view of a magician offering tricks from his chariot. That pleasure lasted only few glances though before her little hand and her whole self got pulled away by her annoyed nanny reminding her that a young girl from a good family should not attend to such things. “Oh yes” she thought “this girl, this horse whisperer must be a magician” she thought.
In fact while all this was taking place in Gwen’s mind the girl was speaking to a nodding horse and was apparently magically capable of having carrots popping out from her little hand. She must have been, oy yes, indeed.
“Ooh good Lordie” skipped out of her lips
The carrot popping stopped but then something else happened. This time it was the turn of Mr Bucket!
“Oooh Lordie supreme!” She exclaimed this time, and in a much too loud fashion.
When she realized how loud she wast, her fair complexion turned the same color of the delightful freckles illuminating her young face.
It was at that point that it happened
.
“Come play with me, and Ferdaid. What are you waiting for?
Those were the words reaching her.
“W…. What?” In her try to recollect herself and pretend to look at the sky and around, the only result she got was to fall in a very clumsy way on the wild-grass. Turning her head up, she heard more of those words.
“Hey, You, Would you like to come play with my Ferfaid ?“
This time followed by a laugher as refreshing as the evening chilly breeze. Now, if there would have been a reward she could have chosen for a day of such an unbearable boredom, well, most certainly she would have opted for something the like.
Well, not that her brain would have ever travelled so far as to conceive ending up playing with a jolly damsel capable of chatting to horses and making tricks, but still.
“ Y…. Yes, ok, … yes”
“My, my name, my name is Gwendolyn, Gwendolyn MacFarland”
She started saying, straightening her long skirt while trying saying something courteous yet at the same time distracting enough from her miserable fall.
Una couldn’t care less, in fact to Gwens greatest surprise she stared at her with the most relaxed smile, as if falling was a normal thing for a girl, and the only concern was the time taken away from Ferdaid’s feeding.

