Slowly but surely, Siobhan was learning how to deal with the punches. It seemed that life waited just long enough for her to find her footing before rocketing another one at her face and leaving her wobbly legged and unsure all over again.

She'd left for the Falls to clear her head and heart, in the hope that some serious inner reflection without the distraction of her two daughters would help her sort things out. Because it was clear to Sio, especially in her last interaction with the golden stallion, that something had crept into her heart without her knowing. She'd spent long enough pining after Bjorn that she had not really considered much of what her future would be like. Siobhan had just assumed it would be more of this. More days spent with her daughters growing like little weeds around her, while they waiting for Bjorn to return. More of watching them explore and learn. More of Ailill at their side, ready to defend and protect them.

He'd done nothing to encourage her, and if truth were told, she did not even know if he returned her affections. In fact, the thought of asking him made her stomach flutter uncomfortably with nerves she'd not had to deal with for a long time. But she could no longer lie to herself. Siobhan didn't crave Ailill's company just because of the time and attention he put into the fillies. She loved the way he was always there to protect them, the way he offered to take the girls whenever she looked beaten down by life, the way he expected nothing of her and yet treated her as though she deserved everything.

She craved the way he didn't make her doubt his intentions. That she didn't have to doubt his goodness. He just was.

That didn't mean she'd stopped loving Bjorn. The thought of her grullo king left her heartsore and sad, but so did the thought of living the rest of her life as an empty husk. She could not picture what pulled him away from her, what thing could have possibly been enough to make him abandon Roisin, but in the end, it didn't really matter. Something had taken him away, and as the days passed to weeks, then months, it had begun to be easier to think of him dead.

At least if he was dead, she would not have to face the thought of explaining to Roisin why she was not good enough.

And to be fair, if she was honest, Ailill was much better at explaining sort of thing. Siobhan's feelings always got in the way and mentions of Bjorn still left her short of breath at the depth of her pain. She couldn't tell Roisin the stories of her once lover, or her bright brother, or the busy herd that once was. She hoped in time that this would lessen, that she could delight the girls as easily as Ailill did.

The thought of her children brings her thoughts back to the greying filly she had towed with her from the Falls. Finding Akadi had been the last thing that she had expected in the mists of the Falls, and yet it felt right to bring her home. Gently the red mare touches the filly's shoulder in reassurance as they stride out of the surf, their coats still slick with seawater.

"Are you ready to meet your sisters, and Ailill?" Sio asks the girl at her side, a smile playing on her lips. With a final touch to the girls shoulder, she turns to call out for her little family, eager to show them little Akadi. She still had a little bit of time before fall to deal with her feelings for Ailill, before hormones steered her decisions for their own purpose.