Beyond fleeing from the Cove, Iris hadn’t known what to do… or where to go.

To the blanketed mare, it felt as if nothing she had nothing left. No purpose, no family - she didn’t even have a home to return to at the end of her journey. And so when they had turned to go, she fell in silently at the Codebreaker’s hip and followed her into the waves’ cold embrace. Together they swam to the Peak’s rugged northern shore with only the mournful sighs of the sea to break the silence. Together they began the trek inland, sharing not even the sidelong glances they’d been trading since their paths had first intertwined. For her part, Iris watched only the ground that moved steadily beneath her hooves, transforming from stone to bare earth to grass and then back again. Whether Adelheid watched her or not, Iris could not be certain - and she did not dare to look.

If she met those strangely-compelling eyes that revealed nothing, she was certain that she’d truly break.

Once, Iris had thought that she would prefer emptiness to the dim and distant hope of seeing her sister again. But now - feeling like the discarded shell of her former self - she understood how very wrong she had been. While it had been little to cling to, the purpose of finding Eve had been something. And it was only now that she had nothing that the seal brown creature understood how truly awful emptiness was. Without the weight of any burdens or the tether of any emotional ties, she was left drifting - but the aimlessness of it was something she could find neither peaceful nor pleasant. For as long as she could remember, Iris had clung to her identity as a caregiver; a protector. And without that… who was she, truly?

Over the miles they traveled in the course of their return, the silence between Adelheid and her spotted companion only grew heavier. Part of Iris even felt that she should break it - that she owed an expression of gratitude, at the very least, to the Vulcan mare. But she could not focus on the search for something to say, and the words did not find her either. By the time that the pair returned to the alpine meadow where the Codebreaker had left her two children, the gulf between them had grown great enough to swallow it whole.

And still, Iris did not speak.

Silently she parted ways with the black mare, offering little more than a glance that was cut brief when her eyes began to fill with tears. Well, that and the gentle brush of her lips along the curve of Adelheid’s shoulder as she turned to go, her thoughts already far ahead in the little glen that was her private sanctuary.

***************************************

It was only days - days, and countless tears - later that Iris’s tightly-wrung mind drew the connection she ought to have made long ago. Troubled by nightmares in which the tobiano stallion drove Eve off one of the Peak’s precipices and onto the rocks below, Gnome’s daughter lay awake thinking of the hated stallion. Remembering the way he had hovered close to her sister, the possessiveness he’d felt evident in every line of his body. Remembering the way he had touched his lips to the swell of her hip, and the tenderness she’d denied seeing in his eyes. Though she could not forgive him, Iris could forgive her sister knowing that she had come to care for Solomon - and that the bond had grown both ways.

She knew what it was, after all, to both resent and respect someone. Didn’t she feel the same way about the mare who remained stubbornly at her side - even during the moments she’d wished her gone? And just as Eve had claimed grief had brought her and the Cove’s ruler together, so the blanketed woman’s pain had united her and Adelheid. In striving to heal Iris, the Codebreaker had somehow stitched the raw edges of them both together. Seasons ago, the seal brown had been filled more with bitterness than anything else when she thought of her Vulcan shadow. But now... now she felt comfort and a curious warmth that swelled in the hollow chambers of her heart.

And then a cold - an ashen cold - when she realized what she had done.

It felt far too late to turn and flee down the mountain to Adelheid’s side, though the fissures in her heart ached anew for the thought of losing the taciturn mare. But she did turn back - lingering near enough to the inky mare to keep her in her sights, yet far enough to avoid her presence being rebuffed. Winter yielded to spring over the course of this dance with its carefully-choreographed steps. It brought life to the mountain, filling bare stone crevices with a colorful riot of wildflowers - but it could not fill Iris’s heart. That much remained empty and aching, though the dream that that might change - that she might one day find a place to belong - was enough to keep her going.

A shadow, but one who may yet regain substance.