“It doesn’t sound stupid.” He assured her quietly. Nephilim had been lucky to find himself in this situation before, though it still made him excitably nervous any time it happened. He still saw himself as no more than that awkward, lonely foal living in the shadows of Crossing Isle, confused and lost with no friends to look to. Having feelings for another was exciting but having those feelings matched was indescribable. He wanted to live only in this moment, in this bubble of happiness they’d found; but he knew as well as any that it couldn’t last forever. There were others here at the Bay which required his constant vigilance.

He wondered, as he always did, how she might get on with the others in the Bay.

Nephilim’s ear flicked and he smiled at her first sentence, more than prepared to agree to her request… then the words continued. Luthien. Prairie. His muscles tensed beneath his coat, his smile fell away immediately. It had been a season ago, if not more, but Nephilim remembered it clearly; the gold and white filly, his half-sister, the scream that had torn from his throat as he and his mother collided, the words he’d spewed hatefully in her face… and then, the stallion; dark bay, black, white spots. Though it was nothing more than one blemish to eventually join many, the old mark where the stallion had pinched his skin ached as though the wound had blossomed anew.

“Nova…” He said, blinking gold eyes and turning them to her. What was he to say? He couldn’t lie, could he? The moment she visited her father and told him of the stallion she lived with, he would know; surely he would. A heavy sigh fell from Nephilim’s mouth and he walked forward, pulling from the humid hot spring and toward the cold air.

“I have no problem with you visiting your father.” That was the good thing, the nice way to start what he needed to tell her. “But…” How could he say what he needed to say without divulging the truth? “Your father and I...” He struggled before giving another frustrated sigh. “We fought when last I went to the Prairie.” He couldn’t look at her, afraid he might see her face fall, see her rethinking her decision to live here in the Bay. “I was going to visit your sisters, Firethorn and Foxglove, who I met when I was a yearling. I ran into a filly while I was there…” Nephilim trailed off again. He was afraid of revealing the truth, the truth of what he’d done, of what he was, and of who hated him in this world. His head shook, just slightly, and his gaze fell to the ground, not wanting to look upon her face as he spoke the next words. “I understand if you don’t want to live here, knowing your father wouldn’t approve… I won’t be upset.”

Foxglove lived here, but that was another story for another time. After all, she was never meant to be here.