The Steel Horse and The Steel Rat

The Steel Horse sees an equal — someone working from the same material. So does The Steel Rat, looking back. A symmetrical reading is rarer than it sounds, and it means the two of you are likely to describe the relationship in the same words — which makes disagreements about it unusually easy to resolve, and misreadings unusually hard to catch.

Horse sits directly opposite Rat. Opposition is not incompatibility — it is the pairing that generates the most movement. It also means neither of you gets to be lazy, and there will be days when that is exhausting rather than energising.

The Steel Horse brings Fire, which The Steel Rat's day pillar carries none of, and The Steel Rat brings Water, which The Steel Horse's carries none of. The exchange runs both ways, which tends to hold up longer than a one-directional one — neither of you is only the giver.

Neither day pillar carries Wood and Earth. A shared absence is harder to work with than a mismatch, because there is nobody in the pairing to notice it: these are qualities the two of you will consistently underrate in each other and in yourselves.