Oswin stood quiet with her daughter, Klara, in one of the many hidden dips and valleys between the foothills which lay at the base of the Peak. They’d been talking before they fell quiet, with Klara bringing up a question Oswin had known she’d voice. Oswin had told Klara the truth of her father when she’d just past a year in age and watched her carefully as she adjusted. Klara took what her mother said in stride, but clearly the truth had been weighing on her mind.

“I want to meet him.” Klara had said, and Oswin sighed, her heart sinking. She couldn’t blame her for wanting such a thing, not when Oswin herself had such a close relationship to her father and spoke often of childhood memories in the Prairie.

Then, the question. “Would you come with me?” Klara asked, and she watched her mother with a mix of hope and fear, thinking Oswin would deny her. “Will you come with me?” Klara corrected herself, and continued, “I’m going to go to the Desert. I want to meet him at least once.”

So silence, then. Klara watched her mother and Oswin ran through the scenarios she’d been thinking of since before Klara was born. What would Koray’s thought be when he saw their accidental tryst resulted in such a beautiful little girl? Would he demand she live with him in the desert to know the land of her father’s blood? Would it become a fight? Would he be so cruel and so horrible as to attempt to hurt Klara? He hadn’t been an evil stallion, but he’d certainly been wretched in enough ways to give Oswin pause.

At the end of the day, the important thing was Oswin was Klara’s mother and she would move the earth to see Klara protected. It was better she went with her the first time Klara met her father. Oswin exhaled and nodded. “We’ll go to the Desert together. Soon.”

Klara’s face lit up bright. “Really mom?!”

Oswin smiled. “Yes.” Her heart constricted and she sighed. Her gaze held on her daughter. It was too early to tell if Klara would have a new sibling in the upcoming spring, but she wanted to tell her… she wanted to share the good news with her daughter. Would Klara think it strange to know Oswin had been with the bachelor who’d taken her to the Lagoon was to be the father of her possible new sibling?

“Klara, I wanted to tell you –” A loud whinny broke the silence, making both Oswin and Klara perk their ears, turning their head in the direction the cry had come. It was a beckoning call, asking someone to come forth, and not a cry of one of their few fellow sisters. Oswin glanced back at her daughter with a smile, “we’ll finish this conversation later. Come on.”

Together mother and daughter walked over the hill and down, spying a large, thickly built black mare in the distance. Oswin admired the strength in her, imagining the force she could be in the right situation.

“Hello,” she greeted once she was close enough, tilting her head as her blue eyes appraised the mare and her intriguingly shaped nose. “I’m Oswin, the Prime Minister of the Peak.” It still gave her chills to say it and it always made her feel proud. Her head lifted just a little. “This is my daughter, Klara. Welcome… what brings you to us?”

oswin
this is as brave as I know how to be.
I know it’s gonna hurt you, but please… be a little proud of me.