Common

Titania had to leave the Thicket. Of course she did. How could she not?

Less than an hour on Luthien and she found trouble in the form of a bachelor stallion. When he was gone, the adrenaline went with him, leaving guilt in its wake. Without an aggressor to draw their focus, the differences between her and her former herd mates came into stark relief. They were the ones who could heal this place, their pale bodies strong and steady like the birch grove at its heart. She was nothing more than an intruder, dark matter and toxic minerals in a pretty wrapper. A harbinger of suffering. A cursed portent, bringing only ruin to those who dared to fall beneath its ephemeral, shining light.

Maybe she had been destined for the Thicket, once. But that was a lifetime ago, and she was a different mare entirely, covered in tangles of invasive roots and scaly lichen, unfit to give her lost love's home the care it deserved. She ran, pinning her ears hard against her poll until all she heard was the pounding of her heart in her chest. Titania crashed into the sea, breaking free of the brambles attempting to claw her back, and told herself her tears were only because of the saltwater stinging her many tiny cuts.

-

The erstwhile Queen washes onto the shores of the main Island some hours later, feeling lonelier than ever. It's early evening, but the sun has already dipped below the treetops, and she shivers against the chill. Winter nears, and she worries for the hardships to come. It was enough of a chore to care for Faline last year, and she had been in her belly then, not a weanling grown out of her baby fuzz. Titania goes to find her now, following the twisting deer paths to the meadow where she'd left the girl dozing in the shadows of long, dry grasses. The moon shines full upon them by the time she breaks from the forest, swaying in the breeze. She pauses. At first glance, she seems to be alone, but this is, of course, the point. She whistles, using the cadence reserved only for calling her little fawn to her side, and perks her ears for the subtle sound of her approach.

But the minutes pass, and Faline does not appear. Her dam whistles once more, sweeping her surroundings - and nothing. Anxiety begins its familiar choking climb up her mottled throat. Don't panic, she tells herself, over and over and over like an incantation until the words have no meaning. Retrace your steps and try again. The winds are high. She is not lost. She is not lost. She is not lost.

Titania swallows down her fear. She turns back down from whence she came, going first over their most recent routes, then the older ones. She loses herself in her frantic searching: her head hangs low to the ground, nostrils flaring for hints of her daughter's moss-framed scent. The mare dares not use her voice, not this late in the evening, when every empty space holds horrors beyond her imagination. Had the painted half-grown followed her, somehow, all this way? Her mind busies itself with worry, ignoring the direction of her steps as she wanders farther South than she had any right to be.

Her view of the sky has been mostly obstructed by the bare-branched canopy for some time. Finally, the trees thin some; the moon has dropped low now, too, its luminescence barely reaching her inkjet skin. Something rustles in the underbrush ahead, drawing her up short, and her wide eyes gleam with desperate, foolish hope. She hasn't noticed another's presence for quite some time now. Maybe the bachelor isn't tailing her like she'd thought. Maybe... just this once...

"Faline?" Titania asks the open air, focusing so much on her daughter's safety that her own - hard-fought, hard-won, and hard-kept, despite it all - falls to the leaf-littered ground at her striped hooves, utterly forgotten.