Common

For a moment they stand at an impasse, the bright mare and the dark colt, each a thrall to the rising tide of their memories. Blunt teeth bared in an equine snarl, Hades watches the golden creature in front of him, white-rimmed eyes wary, hostile. But beneath this brazen mask he is nothing more than a frightened boy, a boy who remembers what it is to be small and weak and insignificant. A boy who has not smiled or spoken since that day, who regards the touch of all his kind with sour suspicion... save for one.

And suddenly she is there, his little tawny bird, the pinch of her teeth wakening him. Claiming him. Trapped between the wall of Finch’s body and the unknown stranger within the clearing, the liver chestnut flattens his ears and stomps one hoof. But his lips have relaxed, and when the white of his teeth shows again, it’s to chew at the air submissively, appeasingly. The sound of his jaws clicking together is all but drowned out by the bright music of the silver bay’s greeting, however, and then the noisome ordeal of Roisin’s arrival. Tensing momentarily beneath the gentle pressure of the dun’s touch, Rivaini’s son snorts a gentle rebuke, twisting his ears back to catch the river of words that flow from her lips.

Like Finch, Roisin’s voice is bright and bubbly— a far cry from the gravelly, speechless rumble he offers in response. In that way, Hades and the yet-unnamed woman are alike; when she speaks, the palomino’s own voice is rough and ragged and still rich with uncertainty. But it is not harsh in the ways he might have expected, does not match the savage screams seared into his mind. Edging forward with wary slinking strides, the boy snuffles at the furrowed earth where she’d once stood, sifting through the scents of leaf and loam to capture hers. Tasting the light perfume that is so different than the choking musk of stallion, feeling the last dark dregs of his memory drain away.

She— she— is not the creature whose teeth had marked him.

Somewhere behind him, Roisin is speaking again, the syllables running together like the soft babbling of a stream. Despite the absence of the confidence with which she’d always commanded the younger children (and their now-matched heights), Hades responds to that voice with as much deference as he always has. Tilting his head back to look at the black-haired girl, flicking his ears forward to better understand her words. Siobhan’s daughter mentions a place known as the Peak, speaking of it as her home. Extends an offer to show them there, her eagerness to do so evident despite the timid curve of her smile. Glancing first at the stranger and then at his little bird, the liver colt moves back to stand at the silver bay’s shoulder before meeting Roisin’s gaze again.

Making it clear— even in his customary silence— that whatever Finch’s decision is, she speaks for him as well.