Not Partholon’s finest chocolate. Not the beauty of a perfect sunrise. Not even…no, she wouldn’t know about that. She shook her head, purposefully changing the pattern of her thoughts. The wind whistled sharply through her hair, and some of the long strands blew into her face making her wish she had tied it back out of the way. She usually did, but today she had wanted to feel its heavy weight, and she admitted to herself that she liked the way it flowed behind her when she ran, like the flame-colored tail of a shooting star.
Her stride faltered as her concentration wavered and Elphame quickly regained control of her stray thoughts. Maintaining speed took focus. The field she ran in was relatively flat and free of most rocks and obstructions, but it wouldn’t be wise to let her thoughts wander. One misstep could snap a leg all too easily; it would be foolish to believe otherwise. For all her life, Elphame had made it a point to shun foolish beliefs and behavior. Foolishness and folly were for people who could afford everyday, normal mistakes. Not for her, for someone whose very design said that she had been touched by the Goddess, and was, therefore, held apart from what was accepted as normal and everyday.
Elphame deepened her breathing and forced herself to relax her upper body. Keep the tension in your lower body, she reminded herself. Keep everything else loose and relaxed. Let the most powerful part of your body do the work. Her teeth glinted in an almost feral grin as she felt her body regather and shoot forward. Elphame loved the way the corded muscles in her legs responded. Her arms pumped effortlessly as her hooves bit into the soft green carpet of the young field.
She was faster than any human. Much faster.
Elphame demanded more of herself, and her body responded with inhuman strength. She may not have been as fast as a centaur over long distances, but few could outdistance her in a sprint, as her brothers liked to frequently boast. With a little more hard work, perhaps none would be able to best her. The thought was almost as satisfying as the wind on her face.
When the burning started she ignored it, knowing that she had to push herself beyond the point of simple muscle fatigue, but she did begin to angle her strides so that her run would take her in a huge spherical path. She would end up back where she had begun.
But not forever, she promised herself. Not forever. And she pushed herself harder.
“Oh, Goddess.” Watching her daughter, Etain whispered reverently, “Will I ever get used to her beauty?”
She is special, Beloved. Epona’s voice shimmered familiarly through her Chosen One’s mind.
She pulled the horse to a halt well within the stand of trees that flanked one end of the field. The silver mare stopped and twisted her head around, cocking her ears at her rider in the horse’s version of a question. And Etain knew that her mare, the equine incarnation of the Goddess Epona, really was asking a question.
“I just want to sit here and watch her.”
The Goddess blew imperiously through her nose.
“I am not spying!” Etain said indignantly. “I am her mother. It is well within my right to watch her run.”
The Goddess tossed her head in a reply that proclaimed she wasn’t so sure.
“Behave with the proper respect.” She jangled the mare’s reigns. “Or I shall leave you at the temple next trip.”
The Goddess didn’t dignify the comment with so much as a snort. Etain ignored the mare who was now ignoring her, and muttered something about grumpy old creatures, but not loud enough for the mare to hear. Then she squinted her eyes and held her hand up to block the setting sun from interfering with her view.
Her daughter was running with a speed that caused her lower body to blur, so that it appeared that she flew above the brilliant green shoots of new wheat. She ran bent forward slightly at the waist, with a grace that always amazed her mother.
“She is the prefect blending of centaur and human,” Etain whispered to the mare, who swiveled her ears to catch the words. “Goddess, you are so wise.”
Elphame had completed the long loop in her imaginary track, and she was beginning to turn toward the grove in which her mother waited. The setting sun framed her running body, catching the girl’s dark auburn hair on fire. It glowed and snapped around her in long, heavy strands.
“She certainly didn’t get that lovely straight hair from me,” Etain told the mare as she tried to tuck one of her ever-escaping curls behind her ear. The mare cocked an ear back attentively. “The red lights that streak her hair, yes, but the rest of it she can thank her father for.” She could also thank him for the color of those amazingly dark eyes. The shape was hers—large and round, resting above high delicate cheekbones that were also copies of her mother’s, but where Etain’s eyes were mossy green, her daughter’s eyes were the entrancing sable of her centaur father’s. Even if Elphame’s physical form hadn’t been completely unique, her beauty would have been unusual—coupled with a body that only the Goddess could have created, the effect was breathtaking.
Elphame’s pace began to slow, and she changed direction so that she was heading directly for the stand of trees in which her mother and the mare waited.
“We should make ourselves known so that she doesn’t think we were lurking around in the shadows watching her.”
They emerged from the tree line, and Etain saw her daughter’s head snap in their direction in an instinctively defensive gesture, but almost immediately Elphame recognized them and raised her arm to wave hello at the same time the mare trumpeted a shrill greeting.
“Mama!” Elphame called happily. “Why don’t you two join me for my cooldown?”
“Of course, my darling,” Etain shouted back. “But slowly, you know the mare is getting old and—”
Before she could finish the sentence the “old mare” in question sprang forward and caught up with the young woman, where she pranced spryly sideways before easily matching her gentle canter with Elphame’s gait.
“The two of you will never be old, Mama.” Elphame laughed.
“She’s just a putting on a show for you,” Etain told her daughter, but she reached down and affectionately ruffled the mare’s silky mane.
“Oh, Mama, please. She’s putting on a show…” Elphame let the sentence trail suggestively off as she quirked her eyebrow and gave her mother a knowing look that took in her glittering jewelry and the seductive wrap of her buttery leather riding outfit that fitted snuggly over her still shapely body.
“El, you know wearing jewelry is a spiritual experience for me,” she said in her Beloved of the Goddess voice.
“I know, Mama.” Elphame grinned.
The mare’s snort was decidedly sarcastic, and Etain’s laughter mingled with her daughter’s as they continued compatibly around the field.
“Where did I leave my wrap?” Elphame muttered half to her mother, half to herself as she searched the edge of the tree line. “I thought I put it on this log.”
Etain watched her daughter scramble over a fallen limb as she searched for the rest of her clothing. She wore only a sleeveless leather top, which was wrapped tightly around her full breasts, and a small strip of linen that hugged her muscular buttocks, and was cut high up on her hips, before it dipped down to a triangle to cover
