"Innayat" he words are just above a whisper "I miss them," her ears rotate atop her head and brush gracefully together in the middle.
"Who Baba?" she asks with a tilt of her delicately chiseled crown. His dark eyes take on a look of sorrow as he remembers each of them who have become lost to him. His mother, A'idah. Orhan, his father. And all of the lives that have touched him since his arrival on the Islands... and especially his Costello.
Many nights he found himself looking to the star speckled heavens, silently he prayed to Allah to return her to him. His skin had shivered as he remembered the touch of her lips against it and his nostrils quivered as he remembered her sweet perfume. She had woven herself around his heart and claimed it for her own.
He clears his throat as he answers her question "My mother, my father, all of those who I have met in my time here on the Islands... I hope daughter, you never have to feel the longing and loneliness that I have felt. I wish for you bountiful blessings," his voice fills with emotion as his eyes settle on her brilliant blues.
A movement draws his dark gaze and his mouth falls agape. His heart stutters as the disbelief soon turns to excitement and then pure bless. Costello. His Costello and ... a foal who remarkably resembles him. His foal? His heart hammers wildly against his ribs as he leaves Innayat's side and steps numbly to meet them. In this moment, it feels as if time slows, the sound of the gulls echos loudly in his mind and the crash of the sea drowns out all of his thoughts - except one - they were here.
His dark eyes fill with disbelief as they trail over the foal - who now clearly - is a filly. A daughter, his daughter?
Costello pauses cautiously but her daughter bravely speaks up. Hello there, her words leave her lips with the excitement of a child. His dark eyes trace over her, from the small stripe on her nose to the splash of white on her belly. A smile traces his whiskered lips as he fondly recalls the moment he had with Costello. Their daughter?
"Hello brave one," he pauses as his dark eyes shift to Costello "I am a friend of your mother's," then his eyes find his daughter once more.
"I am Bahadır and this is Innayat," he turns toward his daughter who stands patiently behind him. She nods and steps to her father's side. Innayat's ears brush gracefully in the middle and her icy blue eyes follow her fathers to look upon the filly and mare who stands before them. She had heard her father speak of Costello, and quietly she wonders if this could be her.
"You are blessed with the heavens stars on your skin, just as my father is," she says to the young girl as she lowers her delicately chiseled head to her height. "What is your name brave one?" she asks with a tilt of her crown.
