Desert

Cerosi was slowly healing. Steadily, she was feeling like herself again, and each day it felt less and less like just another task to feed Kára. She was getting old enough to play with now, but Cerosi hadn’t yet worked up the energy to initiate play with the foal. She wasn’t even sure yet whether Kára would want to play with her, but Cerosi hoped she did, and she thought that was a step in the right direction.

She was still a little out of it when she heard Melisma’s shout from across the Desert. Alarmed, Cerosi told Kára to come and took off at a pace she hoped wouldn’t leave the filly behind. She was afraid, but also curious, and the excitement was bringing her out of the fog.

Close to the shore, Cerosi caught sight of Melisma and a familiar stallion. It was Ironclad, she realized, and an odd mixture of emotions bloomed in her chest. She strode quickly over, closing the distance between them as Cain joined them as well. Guilt joined the confusing mixture of her emotions, which had already been a mess from lingering pregnancy hormones even before Ironclad showed up; she had just been too foggy to notice.

”Ironclad,” she greeted when she reached them. She gave Melisma a nod as she slowed to a walk and then stopped a short distance from all of them. She was grateful in a distant sense for the black mare’s defensiveness of the Desert, even if she didn’t think Ironclad was here to cause trouble. After his one fight with Cain, the two stallions seemed to have developed a sort of strained but otherwise peaceful relationship. Cerosi was grateful for this as well, though she still felt immensely guilty for seeing Ironclad in Cain’s home. She offered a quiet hello to Melisma and her daughter, and seeing Cain reunited with the two of them actually helped to make her feel a little more stable.

Turning, she nickered to Kára to come forward. She could not dismiss Cain’s role in the child’s life (or her own, for that matter) as a caretaker, and Cerosi would not be surprised if Kára saw the tobiano stallion as a father figure, but she also deserved to know the truth. And Ironclad deserved to be known by his daughter, no matter how indecisive Cerosi was about her own commitments. ”Kára, this is your sire, Ironclad.”

Cerosi

mare // 4 // EE aa Dd nRb ZZ // 15hh