Milestones and Memories

Meeting Kallo

Hello everyone,

This week marks a milestone birthday for me. I won't say which one, but it's one of those that has you looking back at the road already traveled and forward to the path ahead. That feeling of reflection has been on my mind a lot lately, especially as I've taken the first steps to share this writing journey with all of you.

When I launched this website and my author Facebook page, I was a bundle of nerves. For so long, this world was a private one, and sharing it felt like a huge, terrifying leap. To see people, not just my supportive friends and family, but a growing number of people I've never met, visit this site, reach out with questions, sign up for the "Whispers from the Reach" newsletter, and follow along on Facebook has been the most incredible and humbling feeling.

To my charter members, my first followers: thank you. Your early support and enthusiasm mean more to me than I can possibly say. It’s the fuel for the fire.

As a small birthday gift from me to you, I wanted to share one of my story's ghosts. It’s a scene that didn't make it into the final book, but one that holds a special place in my heart. This scene marks Catriona’s tenth birthday. Two days after her entire life was destroyed, she met Max, an American outlaw who would become her mentor and father figure. As they began their partnership, she made an offhand comment about her tenth birthday having just passed, a day she no longer felt was worth celebrating. Two days after that, Max bought her a horse. It’s a glimpse into the very beginning of their found-family and the first lesson in a partnership that would define her life.

I hope you enjoy this lost memory.

##

Lost Scene: Kallo

Cat was convinced the horse hated her. Not in a vague, indifferent way, but with a theatrical, almost operatic flair that bordered on a personal vendetta. The mare’s disdain was expressed in explosive snorts that could rival thunder, impatient hooves that struck the dry earth like war drums, and a stubborn, rooted refusal to move that felt less like defiance and more like performance art.

A couple of days after they left the seaside village, Max gifted her the animal, presenting her with the reins early one morning. The sun had just crested the hills, bathing their small, hidden camp in a soft, golden light that filtered through the leaves of the ancient oaks surrounding them. “Happy birthday, Kitty Cat,” he said, his voice unusually soft, his smile shy and crooked in a way that made her chest ache with a feeling she couldn’t name. The gesture stunned her into silence. Not because of the horse, though the creature was breathtaking, but because of the thought behind it. Because he cared enough that he had remembered. In a world where she was trying to forget who she was, someone had seen her.

The mare was a masterpiece of living art, a creature born of storm and moonlight. Her coat was the color of a gathering thunderhead, a deep, moody gray streaked with dapples like silver coins scattered across water. Her eyes were sharp, intelligent, and full of a fiery challenge that mirrored Cat’s own. She was young. Proud. And currently, she was expressing her profound displeasure by standing stock-still in the middle of the sun-drenched meadow, with Cat on her back, snorting hot, dusty air and flicking her long, dark tail with theatrical contempt. This meadow, with its sea of tall, waving grass and distant, hazy mountains, should have been peaceful. Instead, it felt like an arena.

Cat tugged on the reins again, a sharp, angry jerk. Her jaw was clenched so tightly it felt like her teeth might crack. This was supposed to be simple. This was a horse. A creature of flesh and bone. In Atlantis, she had commanded tides with a flick of her wrist, and killed with shadows that answered the call of her grief . Here, in this magic-starved, brutally physical world, her power was a dull, sluggish thing. Just like the horse. As her frustration surged, she felt an unconscious, desperate pull for the familiar comfort of her magic. The wind answered, but it was a pathetic imitation of her mother’s power, just a weak, sudden gust that did little more than kick up a swirl of dust and dead leaves at the mare’s hooves, making the horse snort in what sounded like derision. The humiliation was a palpable, a hot, coiling serpent in her gut. The mare flicked an ear in her direction, a gesture of supreme dismissal, and resumed her statue impersonation.

Max watched from his perch on a nearby fencepost, arms crossed over his broad chest, his hat tilted just enough to shade his eyes. For the better part of an hour, he’d been a silent, unnerving observer, his expression unreadable. The easy charm he wore like a second skin had faded since their training began, replaced by a quiet, focused patience that grated on her nerves far more than teasing ever could. It felt like being judged, weighed, and found wanting. She felt like a failed curiosity, a project he was already regretting.

“Stop fighting her,” he called out, his voice carrying easily across the field.

“I’m guiding her,” Cat snapped, throwing his earlier, instructive words back at him with all the sarcasm she could muster. The word felt foreign and weak on her tongue. She didn’t guide. She commanded. Or, at least, she had.

“You’re annoying her,” he replied, a flicker of amusement in his tone that only stoked her frustration.

She turned to glare at him, her violet eyes blazing. “I didn’t ask for commentary.”

“Didn’t ask for a horse either, didja?” He swung down from the fence with a lazy grace, his boots crunching softly in the tall grass as he approached. “And yet, here we are. You could’ve mentioned you’d never sat on one before.”

Her anger faltered, pricked by the truth in his words. It was replaced by a flicker of vulnerability, a fear that he would see her as useless, a burden he’d mistakenly taken on. “Would you have changed your mind?” she asked, her voice quieter now, the question hanging between them like a fragile thread.

Max paused, his slate-gray eyes studying her for a long moment. It felt like he could see right through her, past the pride right to the deep, aching grief she was trying so hard to hide. Then he shook his head. “No. But I might’ve picked a mount with a little more patience. This one’s got spirit. You two are a matched set.”

He took the reins from her hands, his touch firm but kind, his calloused fingers brushing against hers. He leaned in to stroke the mare’s snout, his voice dropping to a low murmur, a string of nonsense syllables that sounded more like a lullaby than a command. The mare’s ears softened. The tense line of her body relaxed. She leaned into his touch like a child seeking comfort, her intelligent eyes closing halfway.

“You can’t force this,” Max said, meeting Cat’s eyes over the horse’s head. “It’s not about control. It’s not about bending something to your will. It’s about rhythm. Partnership.”

He let out a sharp whistle, and his own stallion, a towering beast as black as midnight, trotted over, nuzzling Max’s shoulder with a familiarity that spoke of years and miles shared together. Cat watched the easy, unspoken affection between them, the way Max’s hand rested on the stallion’s powerful neck, and something warm and wistful stirred in her chest.

“You sound like Valeria,” she muttered, the name slipping out before she could stop it, a ghost on the summer air.

Max blinked, his brow furrowing slightly. Rather than pressing her about who Valeria was, he simply said, “Sounds like someone you ought to listen to.”

“Nevermind,” she said quickly, the words brittle as dried leaves. She turned away, the wall around her heart rebuilding itself, brick by painful brick. Not yet. She wasn’t ready to share that part of herself.

He just nodded and attached a lead rope from his stallion’s saddle to the mare’s bridle. Cat took the reins loosely, but securely. Then, with a practiced swing, he mounted his horse and clicked his tongue. The horses began to walk, Cat’s mare following the stallion with surprising ease.

“What are you doing?” Cat yelped from atop her horse, gripping the reins in a white-knuckled panic as the mare lurched into motion beneath her.

“Finding your rhythm,” Max said, his voice calm, steady. “You’ll thank me later.”

They spent hours in the meadow. The sun arced overhead, beating down on them, casting long shadows across the grass. Cat’s muscles screamed in protest. Her pride was bruised with every jarring bounce from the saddle. But slowly, grudgingly, her body began to move with the horse instead of against it. She learned the subtle shift of weight, the gentle pressure of a knee. Her hands loosened their death grip on the reins. Her breath steadied.

Max didn’t hover. He offered quiet encouragement, the occasional joke, and once, a truly terrible song about a lovesick pirate and his pet goat that made her laugh so hard she nearly fell off the saddle . She hadn’t noticed at what point he’d disconnected the lead. Her newfound rhythm was still a fragile thing, however, and she fell twice. The first time, she landed in a patch of soft, fragrant grass, her pride more wounded than her body. The second time, she scraped her palms and knees on a patch of rocky ground. A sharp, hot pain shot up her arms, and she cursed, a string of ancient, immature oaths that made Max’s laughter ring out across the field - warm, unrestrained, and utterly infectious.

As they led the horses back to camp at dusk, the sky painted in shades of orange and violet, Cat’s legs wobbled beneath her like a newborn foal’s. She thought she might collapse, but she forced herself to stay upright. Her mare nudged her shoulder, puffing warm breath against her cheek. When Cat turned, the horse bobbed her head, her lips flapping in a gesture so exaggerated it was almost comical.

“What now?” Cat muttered, rolling her eyes, but she couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at her lips. She reached out, stroking the mare’s velvety nose with a gentleness she hadn’t known she possessed. “Am I not walking fast enough for your highness?”

The mare stamped a hoof and nudged her again, softer this time, a clear demand for attention.

“She’s waiting for a name,” Max said, smirking as he removed his stallion’s saddle, revealing a silver stripe of hair down the horse’s back that looked like a bolt of lightning. “Ol’ Ten doesn’t know what to call her.”

Cat ran her fingers along the mare’s cheek, feeling the strong bones beneath the skin. Her voice was quiet. “Kallo.”

The horse huffed, a soft, contented sound, and leaned her heavy head against Cat’s shoulder.

“It’s a word from an old language, Greek,” Cat added, feeling suddenly shy. To herself, she acknowledged the truth: that this human language, like so many of the old ones, was just a fractured echo of Old Atlantean. “It means-”

“Beauty,” Max finished, his voice rough but reverent.

She looked at him, startled.

“What?” he said, feigning offense. “An old outlaw can’t have a little education?”

“I didn’t say that.”

He chuckled, patting his stallion’s powerful flank. “Tenebris,” he said, nodding toward the great black horse.

“Darkness,” she translated instantly. Latin, she thought, another child of the mother tongue. “A little bleak, isn’t it?”

“It’s honest,” Max replied, his gaze distant, the laughter fading from his eyes as he looked toward the setting sun . “He found me when I was at my worst. When I walked away from everything and everyone and started over.”

Cat didn’t speak. She felt the weight of his words settle over them like dusk, a shared understanding of loss and new beginnings. She wanted to ask. Wanted to know the story behind the sadness in his eyes. But she didn’t push. Instead, she reached for Kallo’s bridle and whispered something soft, a promise only the horse could hear.

Max watched her, his expression unreadable in the fading light. Then he smiled, a small, quiet, and very real smile. And in that moment, Cat knew: she wasn’t just learning to ride.

She was learning to trust.

##

Even though this scene was cut, it’s a huge piece of Catriona's heart, and sharing it with you all feels like the perfect way to celebrate. Thank you for being here; your support truly means everything.

I'd love to hear from you in the comments! Tell me about a small gift or a quiet, simple moment that has stuck with you and meant the world.

All the best,

T.L. West