Throughout his life, Het Vuur had chosen to remain ignorant to a great many things, which had been made possible in part by his overflowing basin of obstinate stubbornness. Through sheer will he had chosen to remain ignorant to his fallibility and his failures as a leader, and especially his personality flaws. Yet there were some things he could not choose to tune out, no matter how hard he tried – and the dynamics of his relationship with Sterre was one of them.

How could he, when it was the thing that mattered most to him?

In the weeks since they’d arrived in the Peak, the Friesian mare had been growing more and more distant from him. At first, he had assumed it was simply her sourness over what was their new home. Then he’d considered that perhaps she was still somehow irked by their reunion with Inka. When Sterre finally began to physically recoil at his touch, Het Vuur realized it was something else: something altogether darker and more worrisome. Sterre may have never been the romantic sort, but neither had she ever been the sort to physically pull away from him. They had almost always had a strong physical relationship, and often communicated better by touch than with words. Now, with Het Vuur’s inability to see where he was going, touch had become all the more important. He had become used to touching Sterre daily, almost constantly, to maintain a grasp on where he was in relation to his surroundings and to steady himself when the ground was uneven, as well as simply because they both enjoyed the sensation of skin on skin.

He had not yet noticed a correlation between him brushing against a certain area and Sterre pulling away – all he knew was that Sterre seemed to not want him touching her any more, and that could mean only one thing:

She was going to leave him.

It was inevitable, really. Back when they had first been reunited after their years spent apart, Het Vuur had battled every day with the sickly sensation of dread in his stomach. In the mornings he had woken in a panic, having dreamt that Sterre had abandoned him, and occasionally the fear was so pervasive that he had called her name to make certain that she was still there. To him, being abandoned had not simply been a fear – it had been something that was actually going to happen. The only uncertainty had been exactly when it would happen.

Today they were alone, enjoying some solitude away from the prying eyes of the Peak mares. “Enjoying” was a relative word, of course. Both Het Vuur and Sterre seemed caught up in their thoughts today, and Het Vuur in particular was mulling heavily over his growing theory concerning Sterre’s strange behavior. Eventually, he decided to test his hypothesis, and reached out to press his snout against Sterre’s ribcage; as he had expected, she danced away from him with a snort, and he felt the sharp lash of the tips of her tail being flicked in his face.

Anger began to boil in his gut like a thick, hot soup. After a few moments of silent glowering, the stallion lifted his chin and opened to mouth to ask Sterre what the fuck was wrong with her.

“I need to talk to you,” she said, beating him to the punch, and Het Vuur stood dumbly with his lips parted. The heat in his stomach had turned to ice.

It was happening.

“Neuken praten, dan,” he growled.