The Star in the Northern Field
for Esplendida, the white princess
A few days later, the young doe returned to the Northern Field with Prince Dingus beside her. He had asked no questions when she stopped at the edge of the forest and looked down the path; he had simply joined her.
The dark prince stood by the fence. Alone. When he saw them, he lifted his head, but he did not come over straight away. Behind him, the grass moved softly in the wind, and the field seemed larger than the doe remembered.
Her eyes went naturally to the place where Esplendida, the white princess of the Northern Field, had stood. Her absence seemed to be everywhere: in the space beside Losos, in the part of the field where the doe had known them together, and in the sight of him standing there alone.
Dingus stayed close while she watched.
After a while, Losos began walking slowly towards them. The doe thought of all the days he and Esplendida had spent in this field, all the times they had stood side by side, and all the small moments between them for which no one had ever needed words.
When he reached her, she gently brushed her nose along his warm neck and stayed close for a while, as though for a few moments they might hold one another up.
Suddenly, the memory returned.
She saw Esplendida again: her white head and the small crown-shaped marking between her eyes. That was where the golden star had appeared that afternoon, and where, for one brief moment, she had seen the Prince from the Other Kingdom with the small, encouraging nod she knew so well.
At the time, she had thought mostly of him. Now Esplendida belonged to that memory too.
The star had been the Prince’s, his echo reaching her for a moment, but Esplendida was the one who had been there when it happened. She had stood beneath that light, and from that day on the two memories had become gently, strangely entwined.
Perhaps love sometimes travelled farther than the one it had first belonged to. Perhaps it could shine again somewhere unexpected: in a memory, in an encounter, in someone who helped you see what you had not yet been able to see for yourself.
The doe did not know whether love truly worked that way. She only knew that from now on, whenever she thought of the golden star, Esplendida would be there too.
Towards evening, the first stars appeared above the Northern Field. The doe stayed close to Losos while Dingus sat beside them in the grass.
She looked up and thought of her prince in the Other Realm and of Esplendida, the white princess of the Northern Field. She knew that that golden moment would stay with her for a long, long time.