Work Text:
The tribes gathered at the meeting of the ways, not every turn of the seasons, but often enough, perhaps three times in a hand of years. When they did, it was festival, with bonfires and dancing, feasting and the making of alliances, marriages, exchanges of shaggy, sure-footed goats for smooth-coated clever ones, felted wool for woven, teaching of one technique in return for learning another. It was a time for singing, for games, for proving skills of strength, of aim, of fleetness, of stillness, and above all a time for the telling of tales. Tales of the gods, tales of the feats of men, tales of the wonders and terrors of the world.
And when the clans met — by purpose or design, fate or fortune — during the season of the longest night or the shortest, then it was high festival indeed, sacred, exceptional, everything of ordinary time set aside, and forbidden things allowed.
It was on such an occasion that the folk who wandered farthest toward the rising sun came to the waymeet with a new creature, one with a proud neck and noble nose, shoulders as high as a man's, hooves all of a piece, undivided, and a back broad and sturdy. Arvas they called them, horses.
As soon as he saw them, Methos was in love.