Falls

"If Love himself weep, shall not lovers weep,
learning from what sad cause he pours his tears?
Love hears his ladies crying their distress,
showing forth bitter sorrow through their eyes
because villainous Death has worked its cruel
destructive art upon a gentle heart,
and laid waste all that earth can find to praise
in a gracious lady, save her chastity."

Macabre is still dazed from the vivid daydream of her mother. It takes her a minute to fully come round, and even then, after she'd welcomed the conversation of this dark stranger, she can still smell the salt and the mud of the marsh. She can still feel the prickling sensation of the sun at her back. It made her heart ache and she longed for better times. It had been years now since the Great Flood washed away her homeland, and many of those she loved with it. They existed solely in her now, and she was failing them. She should be teaching her children the lessons and lectures of her tribe. She should be carrying on the bloodlines of her herd.

But instead she was here, alone. Abandoned by the stallion who seemingly had wanted her.

Macabre smiles weakly at the stud when he compliments her. Usually she wouldn't be foolish enough to be wooed so easily, if at all, but the young mare truly longed for company. "Vaaco," she repeats. "I've never heard a name like that before." A chilly winter gust swoops low from the sea, rustling the thick fur of Macabre's winter coat. She takes a step closer to the water's edge.

The mare watches as the thick stallion ambles through the shallow waters. He flinches, just barely as he walks, and she can see the exhaustion that hangs over his tired frame. Ear lobes flick forward and back as she registers this, assuming he had only just arrived to the islands, when he speaks again. "They call it The Lost Islands." She says, following him quietly along the riverbank until he's no longer in the water at all, but on firm ground and grazing. "I'm not from here either, so I'm not sure why they call it that. It seemed easy enough to find." She keeps her distance, still curious, but slightly disappointed, assuming that like everyone before him, he had lost interest in her already, behoved by malnourishment and hopeful for something more fashionable to come along. "Maybe it's because this place seems to attract those who are lost. Or those who prefer to remain lost." At this point, Macabre is merely rambling, her mind drifting again to thoughts beyond that of Vaaco and the grass at their hooves.