Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The meadow was endless — or at least to them, it felt that way.

Lux was the kind of horse that seemed to have been born from sunlight itself. Her coat shimmered pearl white and blondish beneath the noon haze, and when she moved, even the dust rose majestically like glitter around her. Every step she took was of practiced grace, the kind that had people pausing to admire the beauty and whisper things like "show horse" and "oohs" and "awhs" of awe

Jinx however? Pfft- She was not a show horse whatsoever.

Jinx was chaos with hooves. Her coat was a stormy patchwork of grey and blueish roan, streaked like lightning had once touched her and decided to not quite settle but stay. She was wild in a way that could never quite be tamed. Not even after three different stables, too many broken fences to count, and a brief incident with a wheelbarrow that no one liked to talk about.

She wasn’t supposed to be in Lux’s pasture.

Some stablehand had made a dumb mistake, or maybe fate had gotten bored that day and decided to play around. Either way, Jinx had ended up in the sun-dappled pasture, tail twitching with mischief and legs already itching to run somewhere she shouldn’t.

Lux noticed her immediately. Obviously. Of course she did.

At first, there was a cautious circling. Lux held herself tall and distant, wary of the new mare who flicked her ears in too many directions at once and rolled in mud like she was some kind of pig daring the sun to keep up with her shine. Jinx had no sense of boundary, or maybe just no regard for it. She bolted through wildflowers, kicked up dirt, and whinnied too loud at nothing.

Lux watched, and something deep inside her something she didn’t have a name for- twitched.

The first real connection was a shared look during a thunderstorm. Most of the other horses huddled together beneath the shelter, but Lux stayed at the edge, head lifted, watching the sky tear itself open. Jinx stood beside her, their flanks barely touching, soaked and quiet for once.

From then on, they gravitated.

Lux brought calm. She’d nudge Jinx away from fences she shouldn’t jump and lead her toward clover patches no one else had found. Jinx brought madness. She’d vanish behind trees, then appear on the ridge at sunset, mane tangled with burrs and eyes blazing like she'd outrun the wind. And always, always, she’d come back to Lux.

They didn’t share apples the way the geldings did. They didn’t rest heads on each other’s backs, not often. But when Lux dozed under the oak, Jinx would stand between her and the wind. When Jinx tore her leg on brambles (again), Lux was the first to nuzzle close and press her side in comfort.

There was a dance to it. Not courtship, not quite, but something quieter. Something wordless.

Sometimes, at dusk, when the farm fell still and the fields stretched in violet and gold, Lux would trot to the hilltop. Jinx would always be there first — wild mane catching the breeze, eyes alight with something Lux would never in her life try to tame.

They would stand together, flank to flank, as the stars blinked awake overhead. Two horses, both ridiculous in their own ways — one made of lightning, one of light — and in the hush of evening, they were simply home.

Chapter Text

It wasn’t supposed to last.

That’s the thing about stories no one writes down: they feel like they’ll forever with no set ending. Until they don’t.

Summer had rolled over into the thick warmth of early fall, when apples dropped heavy from trees and the wind began whispering secrets through the tall grass. Lux and Jinx had carved out something like a routine, though neither would admit it. Not to the others, and definitely not to themselves.

Jinx still spooked at her own shadow sometimes, just for fun. Still tried to bite the moon when it was full. Still led two colts into the hayloft one night, only to jump down first and leave them wondering how they'd ever follow.

Lux still nickered at her. Yet still followed anyway.

But the humans had noticed. That was the beginning of it all.

Whispers around the barn. Little things. Like how Lux moved faster now, more daring on the trail. Or how Jinx let herself be led, just once, because Lux was watching from the fence. Like they were... balancing eachother. Like they needed each other.

That made some people uneasy.

Lux was set to be sold. Not soon, not officially, but papers had been mentioned and a man with boots too clean had come to look at her one afternoon, murmuring about competitions and bloodlines. He didn’t even spared a glance at Jinx.

Jinx knew something was changing. She didn’t understand what paperwork was or how to stick to training schedules, but she understood distance. Understood the way Lux’s eyes lingered on the barn door a little longer each morning, like she was memorizing the sound of it closing.

They started meeting less often. Not on purpose, not deliberately. Just... Less. One evening, Lux wasn’t at their hilltop.

The next day, Jinx knocked open a latch and let herself into the riding ring. Made a mess of everything. No one got hurt, but someone shouted, “That crazy mare is gonna ruin the good one!” And Jinx had stopped — just for a second — because suddenly she wasn’t sure who ‘the good one’ was anymore. It didn’t feel like Lux was being good.

That night, there was a storm again. Harder this time. The kind that rattled barn walls and made even the boldest horses flinch.

Lux wasn’t in her stall.

Jinx found her near the edge of the pasture, standing where the fence met the world beyond it. Rain blurred everything, but Lux didn’t flinch when thunder cracked like old bones in the sky. She just looked — calm and quiet and sad, in that way only horses and old souls seemed be.

Jinx walked up and stopped beside her.

For a long time, they didn’t move.

Then, slowly, Lux turned her head, leaned in, and rested her muzzle against Jinx’s soaked neck. Not dramatic. Not showy. Just there. Solid. Real.

If the world was going to change, let it.

But for that moment — that exact moment — they were still two halves of something the earth hadn’t quite figured out how to name.

Not thunder. Not sunlight. Not tame, and never entirely wild.

Just them.

And for now, that was enough.

Chapter Text

Lux left on a Thursday.

No storm, no fanfare. Just a trailer, too clean and too quiet, and hands that clipped her lead rope with practiced ease. Jinx wasn’t there to see her off. Not because she didn’t know — she always knew when it came to Lux. But because she refused to believe it was real.

Or maybe she just didn’t want to watch the door close.

The pasture felt wrong after that. Too big in the mornings. Too still at dusk. Jinx kicked the water trough over three times that week and bit a gelding who looked at her sideways. She stopped sleeping near the oak. She didn’t go to their hilltop anymore.

And the stars, when they blinked awake, felt like they were looking for something. Someone.

Lux’s new home had mirrors and marble-floored stalls. Everything was immaculate. Everything was structured. She was praised, groomed, given grain with supplements and lucerne so green it looked fake. Her rider wore perfume and even whispered sweet praise when she did good.

But Lux kept waiting for the sound of thunder, hooves drumming in patterns no one could predict, a flash of grey-blue lightning darting past the fence line. But it never came.

She ran well. She placed second in her first show, then first in the next. People smiled when they spoke her name. “A stunner,” they said. “Refined.” “Exceptional.”

But she wasn’t home.

Back at the old farm, Jinx had started standing at the top of the hill again. Not every night. Just the ones when the sky cracked open, or when the wind smelled faintly of sun-warmed clover. She didn’t understand time like humans did; minutes, hours, months, whatever. But she did understand waiting. And she’d done a lot of it since Lux was sold.

And one morning, long after the trees had dropped their leaves and the frost had begun to whisper along the ground, something changed.

There was shouting. A broken fence. A new name on the barn board. Something about “too much spirit” and “she needs discipline and “not worth the effort anymore.”

Jinx didn’t care.

All she knew was that a trailer rolled up again. Dusty this time. No fanfare. And when the door opened…

Lux stepped out.

She was thinner. Her mane had been braided too tight, and there was a mark on her leg from a jump gone wrong. But her eyes?

Her eyes found Jinx like they’d never stopped looking to start with.

They didn’t run to each other. That wasn’t their style. Lux stood still. Jinx snorted and shook her mane like it was no big deal.

But that night, the hilltop held two shapes again.

And when the stars came back, blinking and curious, they found two horses standing flank to flank once again.

One of sunlight, scarred but shining.

One of storm, still untamed.

Together again, not because someone told them to be, not because a story demanded it.. But because somehow, in all the madness and grace of the world, they’d found their way back.

And this time, they didn’t plan to leave.