Work Text:
There’s a girl in the pasture.
She’s blond, holding a small duffle bag on her shoulder and watching the horses graze. Stina squints at her across the field.
“There’s a girl in the pasture,” she says. Her mother hums in agreement from where she’s seated on the ground fixing a stable door. “Why is there a girl in the pasture?”
Vika takes a nail out of her mouth and looks up.
“She’s the new stablehand, remember? Came around to help us with the chores. Might take some horses to competitions if you don’t have the time.”
“Hm.” Stina glances back at the girl. She doesn’t look strong enough to work on a farm, to be honest; too short. Too skinny. “I’m going to go talk to her,” she decides. Vika gives her a thumbs-up.
“Hey,” Stina calls as soon as the girl’s within earshot. “Hey. Hey!”
“Oh! Hello,” the girl says, turning around. She grins sheepishly. “Sorry, I was just… you have horses here.”
Stina waits a beat. The girl doesn’t continue.
“Well,” she says. “Yes. This is primarily a horse farm, actually. Didn’t you know that before you got hired?”
“Yeah, but- still. They’re beautiful.”
“Uh-huh.” They are beautiful, actually, but Stina is becoming more and more convinced that this girl has little to no experience with horses. Do her parents do any background research before hiring people?
“Anyway-” The girl sticks out a hand. Her skin is startlingly pale against Stina’s own. “I’m Sophie Foster.”
“Stina Heks,” Stina says. “I’ll show you around, I guess.”
Their farm is sprawling, acres and acres of land for animals to wander. Stina knows every inch of it- from the barns to the paths to the open meadows. Showing it all to Sophie is comforting, almost. A reminder of how much she loves her home.
Finally, they arrive at Stina’s favorite pasture. Greyfell gallops up as soon as she steps inside the gate, and Stina laughs as she offers him one of the carrots she keeps in her pocket for this exact reason.
Behind her, Sophie makes a soft noise. When Stina turns, she’s staring at the bright-white horse at the other end of the pasture.
“Who’s that?” she asks. Stina rolls her eyes.
“Silveny. Don’t get too close, she hates people.”
Sophie completely ignores her and steps forward, holding out a hand. Silveny moves forward and Stina braces herself for the inevitable biting, but all the horse does is nuzzle Sophie’s hand.
“Aww, hello!” Sophie coos. “It’s nice to meet you, Silveny.”
“What the hell, ” Stina hisses to her. “What the hell. Are you magic? How did you tame her?” Sophie doesn’t respond, still talking to Silveny. “This is actually scaring me, what.”
Sophie pats Silveny’s head, smiling. “She’s not mean,” she says. “I think she likes me.”
“Sophie, that horse is the literal devil. How on Earth did you manage that?”
“I don’t know!” Sophie glances up at the horse. “Can I ride her? Is that safe?”
Stina throws her hands in the air. “Sure,” she says. “Why not. She never lets anyone ride her, but you’ll probably be the first. Come on.” She swings herself onto Greyfell’s back, running a hand through his familiar mane. Checking to see if Sophie’s all right- she is, of course she is, this girl is wholly unprepared for the world but at least she has the luck of a goddamn leprechaun- she guides Greyfell out of the gate.
They go slow, at first. Trot past the stables (Silveny has to be distracted from the hay), let Sophie get her bearings. Once they get into the meadow, though, Sophie speeds ahead, whooping. Stina huffs and urges Greyfell into a gallop.
The wind lifts the end of her ponytail, tossing a few stray curls into her eyes. It’s hard to care, though. Riding with Greyfell feels like magic, like sunlight; it’s calming and perfect. Stina can almost tune out Sophie’s excited shouts.
Almost.
“We should head back,” she yells after a while. “We need to put the horses back in the stable before sundown.”
“Okay,” Sophie says. They canter back to the house in silence, slipping off their horses just as the sun starts to fall. Keefe waves a hand when they push the doors open.
“Heks,” he says pleasantly, nodding to Stina. “How goes the training to be the best horse owner in the country?”
“We were just riding today, no practice.” Stina nudges Greyfell into a stall.
“Practice?” Sophie asks, doing the same for Silveny. Almost unconsciously, she reaches forward and refills her water bucket.
“I compete in horse shows,” Stina says. “They have an event every couple months two towns over.”
“Neat.”
“You’re the new stablehand, right?” Keefe stands up. “I’m Keefe, I help take care of the cows.”
“Yeah! I’m Sophie,” Sophie says. “It’s very nice to meet you.” She smiles at him and something in Stina’s gut twists.
“Hey, lovebirds,” she interrupts. “Hate to break things up, but Sophie needs to get to dinner. See you tomorrow, Sencen.”
Sophie flushes bright red, but Keefe just grins.
“Have a good night.”
“Have a good night,” Sophie echoes, trailing her fingers through Silveny’s mane one last time before she follows Stina into the house.
Stina wakes up before dawn the next morning, and it takes her a minute to figure out why. When she hears wood creak again, she knows.
Sophie’s guest bedroom is right next to hers, which means it’s right above the back stairs. And the back stairs, if you don’t know what you’re doing, will be incredibly loud with every move you make. Stina groans and rolls out of bed.
“It is four a goddamn m, ” she says, opening the door, “and you better be dead or dying because I refuse to be awake this early otherwise.”
Sophie looks at her guiltily from where she’s frozen halfway down the stairs. “Sorry,” she half-whispers. “I smelled the coffee and couldn’t sleep anymore. Didn’t mean to wake you up.”
“Whatever.” Stina grabs her boots and a sweatshirt, pulling it over her tank top. “Let’s just eat, and then you can help me with mucking out the stables to make up for being a jerk.”
The kitchen is warm when they enter. Timkin is hunched over the stovetop, prodding at a pan of scrambled eggs. He points to the food set out on the table.
“Breakfast’s there. Eggs or no?”
“Yes,” Stina says at the same time Sophie says “absolutely.” They both settle down into chairs and scarf down the meal. Timkin sits across from them and sips a mug of coffee.
“So, Sophie,” he says. “We didn’t have time to mention it last night, but Vika and I were hoping you’d be able to join Stina in the riding competition in a little over a month- we’d like to show more of our horses. Would you be up for that?” When Sophie nods he continues, “Fantastic. Stina will show you the horses today, then. Stina, maybe try Gossamer first? Or Max.”
“Actually,” Sophie says, setting down her fork. “I was hoping I could ride Silveny.”
Timkin stares at her. Stina stifles a laugh.
“Pardon?” her father says. “Silveny isn’t a safe horse to ride, I’m afraid. She’s very… volatile around people.”
“Not around me!” Sophie protests. “I really like her.”
“I’m glad about that,” Timkin says, in a tone that implies he is very much not glad. “But the answer is no. She’s not even competition-trained.”
“So I’ll train her. Whatever it takes, I don’t care. I’m riding Silveny.”
“Dad, just let her,” Stina intercedes. “If she fails, so what? She can take Gossamer in the competition; he doesn’t need any training.”
“You know what, fine. Fine! Go ahead.” Timkin throws up his hands. “Go train the demon horse. Just shovel the stables first.”
“Great.” Sophie stands up and marches towards the door. “Stina, I’ll be out in the barn.”
“Well. She’s got quite the personality, doesn’t she.” Timkin says as soon as Sophie’s out of earshot. Stina shrugs.
“You’re the ones who hired her.”
Timkin huffs a half-laugh. “You’re pretty defensive today. Any particular reason?”
“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. I need to go do chores.” Stina escapes through the back door and grabs a shovel, catching up to Sophie in the stables. The other girl is just pouring new hay into Greyfell’s feed bin. Stina takes the empty bag from her.
“Hey,” Sophie says. “Um, thanks for helping convince your dad. He seemed pretty pissed in there.”
Stina waves a hand in the air. “He’s not actually. Just weirded out by the fact Silveny likes you. Which I am too, by the way, because it’s weird. ”
“Thanks,” Sophie says dryly. Stina breezes past her to shovel muck into a trash bucket.
“Of course.”
The rest of chores go smoothly, and in no time at all they’re back in the pasture with Silveny and Greyfell. Stina hands Sophie a saddle.
“Here. I know we rode bareback yesterday, but you’ll need that if you’re really serious about competing. Wanna try just the canters today? They’re what you use at the beginning for show.”
“All right,” Sophie says, sliding into the saddle. Silveny makes a half-whinny noise and Sophie grins. “Let’s go.”
There’s a girl outside the barn, and Stina’s learned enough in the two weeks she’s been here to know that she’s absolutely insane.
“What are you doing? ” Stina asks, kicking a stray piece of wood. Sophie shrugs, hammering a nail into the corner of the vaguely-rectangular shape she’s built.
“Building a hurdle for Silveny to practice show jumping.”
“We have hurdles,” Stina points out. “You’ve used them before.”
“I know that,” Sophie says, rolling her eyes like Stina’s the one being difficult. “But Silveny can jump way higher than them. I want to see how tall of an obstacle she can clear.”
“Well, you’re not going to get anywhere with that. It’ll fall apart as soon as you try and stand it upright.”
Sophie huffs. “Please, like you could do better.”
“Watch me.” Stina grabs a hammer and plops down on the grass beside her. Placing a piece of wood diagonally from one corner of the rectangle to another, she starts to nail them in. Once it’s finished, she stands the hurdle up.
It immediately falls to pieces. “Fuck.”
Sophie laughs, a loud snorting sound that makes Stina turn and check that she’s not in pain. “Wow,” she mocks. “Great job.”
“Look-”
“Sophie! Stina! Hey,” Keefe appears from behind the barn, boots splattered with mud. “Whatcha’ two doing?”
“Trying to build an extra-tall hurdle for Silveny,” Sophie says. “It’s… not going well.”
“I can sort of tell, yeah.” Keefe tilts his head towards the collapsed rectangle. “Need any help? I’m pretty good at building.”
“Please,” Sophie gestures towards the ground next to her. Keefe sits down and picks up a hammer, arranging the planks into something that Stina has to admit looks sturdier than before. Sophie smiles at him.
Stina is starting to get the same gut-twisting feeling she’s had before. It’s been happening a lot lately, actually; whenever Keefe shows up with his stupid quips. She doesn’t quite understand why.
“I should go,” she says abruptly, getting to her feet. Sophie and Keefe have been talking, probably- or maybe they’re just staring into each other’s eyes. Whatever. “Gotta- cows.”
“The cows are fine,” Keefe calls after her. “I just fed them.”
Stina ignores him and heads back to Greyfell’s pasture. Her horse rushes up as soon as she gets up to the gate, nuzzling his nose against her outstretched hand. Stina lets out a long breath and presses her forehead against his.
“Hey, boy. Wanna go out to the meadow?”
Greyfell makes a sound Stina chooses to interpret as agreement. She lets him out of the gate and swings herself up, turning him towards the fields.
The hurdles are still set up, this close to the farm; Greyfell jumps a few of them on the way. When they get past, over the hill that marks the official end of Sterling Gables territory and moves into just Heks land.
The meadow is, technically, not a meadow at all. Stina looked up the dictionary definition of meadow once- a piece of low ground near a river- and there’s no water anywhere in this area. But it’s more meadow than anything else; in Stina’s opinion, to call it anything like grassland is a crime.
She jumps off of Greyfell’s back and throws herself onto the ground, inhaling the scent of flowers and grass.
Okay.
“What’s up with her?” she groans to no one in particular. “She’s, like, never ridden a horse in her life and yet somehow can train goddamn Silveny to compete? I don’t get it.”
Greyfell doesn’t respond. When Stina flops over onto her side to glance at him, his face is completely buried in the grass. She sighs.
“Whatever.”
She stays in the meadow until sundown that night, just staring up at the sky. When she gets back onto her horse to head back home, she’s come to three conclusions.
One: Sophie Foster is inexperienced and ridiculously dumb, but she’s somehow one of the best horseriders Stina’s ever seen.
Two: Sophie and Keefe are friends, probably because they’re both equally annoying. And if Stina has any sort of understanding of relationships, they’re going to start dating sometime soon.
And three: Stina doesn’t like that. For whatever reason. That’s the part she understands least, really. She barely even likes Sophie. She shouldn’t- doesn’t - care about what the girl does.
Right? Right.
Right.
It’s midday Saturday, the sun high in the sky and the heat pressing down like a wool blanket, when Fitz Vacker rides up.
He’s impeccably dressed, as usual. Not a hair out of place, no matter the hours he’s had to have been riding to get to Sterling Gables from the Vacker estate. Stina can never tell if she hates him or just hates the way people like him are supposed to act.
“Hello,” Fitz calls down, guiding his horse towards the water trough they keep out front. “Is Keefe around today?”
Stina wants to say no. She really, really wants to say she has no idea where Keefe is, if only to be able to watch this rich boy have to turn back home disappointed.
“He’s in the barn,” she says instead. She’s not that mean.
Fitz slides off his horse and disappears into the barn, nodding thanks in her direction. Stina rolls her eyes- who does he think he is, walking around like he owns the place just because he comes in every few weeks for new hay- and continues shoveling out the pigsty.
It’s coincidence, really, that she’s walking by the open door of the barn with a bucketful of muck just as Fitz lets out a long sigh like he’s gearing up for an entire speech.
(It’s not coincidence that she stops walking as soon as she’s out of sight and peeks her head in the doorway to see what’s going on, but that’s not important.)
“Look,” Fitz says, kicking the dirt with his toe. “What I’m trying to say is- the fair is next week. I know you have it off because you’re not riding in any of the competitions. So would you want to go with me? Like a date?”
“Like a date,” Keefe says. From where Stina’s standing she can see his face clearly; he’s blinking rapidly like there’s something in his eye. “I- yeah. Yeah. I’d like that.”
“Great,” Fitz says. “I’ll meet you there, then? Next Sunday?”
“Yeah.”
Stina presses herself against the wall as Fitz strides out of the barn, but she needn’t have bothered hiding. If the huge smile on his face is any indication, he’s too on top of the world to notice anything else.
Stina wishes she shared that elation.
“You’re an asshole, ” she says, marching into the barn as soon as Fitz’s horse disappears over the hill. Keefe stares at her.
“Pardon?”
“You’re an asshole,” Stina repeats. “What the hell was that? You said yes to Fitz Vacker taking you on a date?”
“Yes? I don’t catch your drift here.”
“My drift is that you have a girlfriend, idiot! And it’s a pretty asshole move to cheat on Sophie just because some rich boy shows up!”
“Wait. Wait wait wait. Hold up.” Keefe waves a hand in the air like some sort of orchestra conductor. “You think Sophie’s my girlfriend?”
“Duh. You two spend eighty percent of the day together. I saw you holding hands yesterday, for goodness sake.”
“We were holding hands because I had almost fallen off the stable roof. And we’re friends. We can spend time together.”
Stina glares. “Well-”
“Sophie and I aren’t dating, okay? And we’re not going to. Besides, I think she’s got her eye on someone else.” Keefe tilts his head to the side. “Hey, why do you care, anyway?”
“I don’t. Whatever.” Stina turns on her heel and stomps out to the fields, stopping just before the hurdles.
Whatever.
“Hey!” Silveny gallops into view, Sophie waving from her back. They jump one of the hurdles and then skid to a stop. Sophie trots her horse over. “You up for training today? I could use some company.”
“Sure,” Stina says. “Real quick- you and Keefe aren’t dating, right?”
“What? No.” Sophie laughs. “No, he’s not my type. Why?”
“Nothing.” Stina turns back towards Greyfell’s pasture to retrieve her horse. When she swings herself up into the saddle, he makes a sound that probably translates to you’re an idiot. Stina snorts.
“Yeah. I know.”
“The competition is tomorrow,” Vika says.
“I know.”
“Are you ready for it?”
“No.”
“All right.” Vika goes back to her book.
Across from where Stina and her mother sit on the couch, Sophie squints at them.
“Was that your entire conversation?” she asks after a moment. Stina turns to her, bored look she’s practiced in the mirror fixed in place.
“Yes.”
Sophie nods. “Okay, then.”
They sit in silence for a moment. Vika turns a page. Stina picks up a newspaper that someone- probably her dad- left on the coffee table. Sophie stares at the ceiling.
Vika hums. Stina reads an article about inorganic carrot farming. Sophie taps her fingers against the side of her armchair.
Vika skips to halfway through her book, presumably because she got bored with the current scene. Stina tries to solve the newspaper crossword in her brain. Sophie gives an exasperated sigh and stands up.
“I’m going out,” she says. Stina hides a grin in her newspaper.
“I’ll come with you. Wanna see the meadow?”
“Meadow?” Sophie asks as Stina leads her out to the pasture.
“Yeah. It’s my favorite place in the entire world.” Stina turns around and points at Sophie. “If you say anything about it I will stab you.”
“Noted. Where do we go?”
The ride there is quiet, just wind and Silveny’s occasional neigh. When they reach the meadow, Stina keeps her eyes on Sophie.
The blond girl jumps down, looking around with a grin. She crouches and picks up a tiny clover flower.
“I love it here,” she declares. Stina snorts.
“Good. You should.” She flops down onto the ground, Sophie following suit. Somewhere off in the distance, a bird trills.
“So,” Sophie says. “Are you excited about the competition, at least?”
Stina shrugs. “I guess. The rest of the day should be fun, at least. Riding’s in the morning so we have the rest of the day for the fair.”
Sophie laughs. “Just have to get through the competition first.”
Stina tilts her head to the side. “Hm. Are you excited?”
“I- Yeah. I am, I think. Nervous, mostly, but- this is what I want. This is what I’ve wanted for a very long time.”
“Then I hope you win,” Stina says easily. Sophie blinks.
“You’re competing against me, though. And you’re way better.”
Stina snorts. “Please. You’re, like, a child prodigy or something. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to throw the contest. But I think you’ve got a good shot.”
“I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“Ha. Enjoy it while it lasts.”
They’re quiet for a moment. Sophie tilts her head back to look at the sky.
“Riding outside always reminds me of those, like, old English romance novels my dad used to read. Jane Austen and all that. You know the ones?”
“No,” Stina deadpans, and then, “maybe. I think we read Emma in ninth grade.”
“Yeah! Well, not really that one, but stuff along those lines. There’s always a scene where the fancy British guy goes riding or something and then he gives the girl flowers.”
“Compelling. I want to go read all of those right now.”
“Shut up. I just… it feels like that, you know? Like I’m about to have some great adventure.”
“Well, here.” Stina plucks a dandelion out of the grass next to her and hands it to Sophie. “I’m giving the girl flowers.”
Inexplicably, Sophie’s cheeks dust pink. She smiles at Stina and tucks the dandelion behind her ear.
“Thank you. It’s pretty.”
“It’s a weed.”
“Can you do anything nice without being mean about it?”
“No.” But Stina’s hand doesn’t seem to be on the same wavelength as her brain, and she reaches out to push the flower more firmly into Sophie’s hair. When she starts to pull her hand back, Sophie reaches up and grabs her fingers. Her eyes are warm when Stina glances down at her.
“Hi,” Stina says. Sophie grins, taking Stina’s hand more firmly and twining their fingers together.
“Hi,” she echoes.
The bird trills again. Slowly, Sophie starts to get to her feet.
“We should head back, yeah? Get some rest before tomorrow.”
Stina nods and swings herself back up into the saddle. Her fingers, when she strokes Greyfell’s mane, are still outstretched like they’re missing something.
“Whoa,” is all Sophie says when they get to the fairgrounds the next morning. She gazes around, at the tents and the bright-colored stalls and the Ferris wheel at the other end. In front of them is the fenced-in area where the horse show will take place; Stina can already see hurdles being set up.
Sophie takes a deep breath. “Here goes nothing, then,” she mutters. Stina nudges her shoulder.
“You won’t place last, at least. Shayda Adel is here and she’s lost all four of the last shows. Her horse can’t tell a canter from a trot. He just speeds all over the place like a spinning top on legs.”
“That’s mean,” Sophie says, but she’s stifling a laugh. Her shoulders relax even more when they’re allowed into the stables to retrieve their horses and Silveny greets her with an enthusiastic neigh. “Hey, girl. You ready for this?”
Silveny, predictably, doesn’t respond. Sophie seems satisfied, though.
They spend the next half hour getting ready- brushing the horses, giving them carrots, putting the saddles on. Other contestants come in and out, some waving to Stina. When the announcer’s voice carries into the stables to herald the beginning of the show, Sophie stiffens.
Stina reaches for her hand. They really need to be getting onto their horses and preparing to go out there- the horses before them won’t take that long even if the two of them are scheduled last- but Sophie’s not going anywhere like this. Stina sits her down on a hay bale and traces the lines in Sophie’s palm. Slowly, the other girl’s breathing calms down a bit.
“All good?” Stina asks. Sophie gives her a shaky smile.
“Better, at least.”
“You got this,” Stina says. Sophie nods, determined.
“I got this,” she repeats, swinging herself into the saddle. “I got this.”
And- well, Stina can’t see much of her show from her position just outside the fence, but from what she can make out, Sophie does have this. She and Silveny jump and canter and gallop through their precise pattern of spins for the reining part of the show, looking to all the world like a pair that have been training for most of their lives.
When it’s their turn, Stina thinks she and her horse do well- Greyfell’s always been good in shows- but even they are nowhere near Sophie’s level. It would probably be frustrating to see a complete newbie beat her, but that newbie is Sophie and Stina finds herself not minding at all.
The ribbons are announced. They walk off the field, stable their horses, and then Sophie’s throwing herself into Stina’s arms in a flash of bright blue.
“You did it,” Stina says. “You actually won.” Sophie pulls back from the hug and taps the second-place red ribbon affixed to Stina’s collar.
“ We won,” she corrects. “You and me and Silveny and Greyfell. We all did it.”
Stina rolls her eyes, but she can feel herself smiling. Sophie’s still so close, hands holding onto Stina’s waist and eyes sparkling.
There are probably a thousand words for how Stina feels right now. It’s been described over and over again, victorious and euphoric and maybe a little bit in love. She can’t seem to figure out any of them.
“We won,” she says instead. “We won.”
The fair after the horse show is Stina’s favorite part. Sure, it’s dirty, and crowded, and the carnival music that blasts from everywhere is causing permanent damage to her eardrums, but it’s nice to be able to walk around and just take in the sights.
Usually. When she’s not surrounded by idiots.
“Try it!”
Fitz leans away from the corndog Keefe is holding out, face scrunched up into a grimace. “That looks disgusting. I’ll pass, thanks.”
“They’re good, actually,” Sophie says, taking a bite of fried dough. A cloud of powdered sugar wafts up into her face and she sneezes.
Heaving a dramatic sigh, Fitz accepts the corndog and takes a tiny bite. He blinks and takes another one.
“Wait. It’s… good?”
“I told you,” Keefe says, slinging an arm around his shoulders. “Carnival food. Best in the country.”
“That is neither factual nor probable,” Fitz responds. The two continue their odd bicker-flirting, and Sophie tugs on Stina’s wrist.
“Do you want to go to the hall of mirrors?” she asks. “I feel like we should leave them alone before we get caught up in some sort of crime.”
Stina giggles- giggles, like she’s some sort of little kid, what on Earth is happening- and follows Sophie to the tent. They slip in behind a group of rowdy teenage girls and turn the opposite way from them immediately. Sophie takes the lead, twisting through the path of mirrors like she knows the way. She pauses when they reach a little alcove off to the side, near the back of the tent. Stina reaches out and brushes a bit of the fabric that’s exposed between two mirrors. It’s soft and nearly-threadbare, from weather and use.
Sophie studies herself in one of the mirrors. It’s an almost-normal one, reflection average until you look at your ankles and realise they’re turned completely the wrong direction. Stina moves to stand next to her.
“I should thank you,” Sophie says after a minute. “I’ve been so scared since I started here. I mean, I’d barely ridden a horse before Silveny, but somehow she and I just- clicked. And you were the one that convinced your dad to let me try. So… thanks.”
Stina shrugs. “At least you’re not as incompetent as I thought you were.”
“Was I that obvious?” Stina nods and Sophie laughs. They both fall quiet, eyes meeting in the mirror. Sophie tugs on one of her eyelashes.
“This is nice,” Stina says, surprising even herself. “Today’s been good.”
“It has,” Sophie agrees. Stina looks at her reflection, at the blond hair and brown eyes and Sophie Sophie Sophie.
“Do you want to do something like this again? Go out somewhere together?”
“Isn’t that what we’ve been doing?”
The question is such a Stina-like thing to say that it shocks Stina into laughing. Sophie grins and turns to her. They stare at each other.
“If you’re serious, though-” Sophie says quietly. “If you’d actually want to go out with me more- I’d like that.”
Stina tilts Sophie’s chin up and kisses her, just long enough they both know it’s real. Then she pulls back, and she’s sure the bright smile on Sophie’s face is rivaled only by her own.
“You wanna go on the Ferris wheel?” Sophie asks.
The line is short, this late at night; the fair will probably be closing soon. They climb into a cabin and watch as the lights below grow smaller. Stina presses her hand against the grate of the side and looks out at the stars.
“Nice night,” Sophie says. Stina turns to look at her and Sophie reaches for her hand, squeezing once before relaxing her grip. Her skin is warm.
There is a girl in the pasture and there is a girl outside the barn and there is a girl in her arms laughing because they won. And there is a girl in the reflection of an almost-right mirror, saying thank you for believing in us. And most of all there is Sophie, hanging tight to Stina’s hand as they come face-to-face with the stars.
“You’re beautiful,” Stina says, and Sophie smiles.