Common

A voice rings out towards her, deep and smug and recently-familiar, and instantly Titania knows she's screwed. Her ears flatten instinctively against the painted bachelor's approach, her muscles tensing in anticipation. She'd had her fill of him on Luthien, thank you very much, but he didn't seem to agree, shouldering into the shifting planes of her body to clamp his teeth possessively over her withers. She squeals, dipping her head down to pinch the soft skin of his neck and shoulder, and throws her weight into her hips, shoving hard against his pressure. Rougaru was the first man who'd tried to claim her like that, and she had promised herself no more. The mare's ears flick forward to catch his name, and she smirks. Bastard, she thinks, would be more appropriate, but says nothing. One dark leg has lifted, a striped hoof aimed in his direction, when he speaks again - and like pouring gasoline on an open flame she explodes, attacking him with wild-eyed fury under the brightening sky.

"If I knew," she says between blows, punctuating her words with more bites, "where she was," yet more, "I wouldn't be here, dumbass." Titania snorts, her hot breath fogging out in thin clouds around them, and snaps her tail against her hindquarters. This strange man is nothing more to her than a fly, bigger in size but just as unable to listen to her gentler attempts to drive him off. Well, fine. If a swat wouldn't do it, she would squish him beneath her hooves, and leave him as an example for the others. The star-streaked woman is gearing up for another onslaught, bunched together like a serpent ready to strike - and then a voice cuts through the gloom, pulling her gaze just briefly over her shoulder to a stand of young redwoods on the farther edge of the clearing. Beneath the boughs lurks another stranger: a mare, jeering from the sidelines in Titania's favor. The fae says nothing, only twitches her tail in tacit approval and turns back to face the bachelor. Even without the other's physical support, her eyes upon them are enough to help her feel safer. Rehoboam might have followed her here, but he'd run when faced with more than one threat, and unlike the quiet inhabitants of the Thicket this one seems willing to make a lot more noise.

Her mouth opens, fresh insults loaded like poison on the tip of her tongue, but another cry reaches them from the gloom. Another mare appears out of the ether, coming closer than the last, and plants herself firmly in the stallion's way. Every pointed word that leaves her lips only widens the Cheshire grin on Titania's own. Chaos creeps further and further into this interaction, sneaking in under the morning sun's pale golden rays. If she plays her cards right, perhaps she can foment enough of it to blind the dusty little jerk where he stands and slip like the last of the night's long shadows out of his faltering grip.

Titania peers sidelong at the stormy mare. They are alike in some ways, both made of fire and brimstone, but this warrior actually smells of it, silt and conifers and other women, as potent and true as the stink of the men clinging to the bachelor's coat. She had caught only whiffs of such a perfume during her months on the Crossing, preferring the milder weather farther South, but she'd heard whispers of it just as anyone: a place nestled high amongst the snowcapped mountains on the horizon, where mares could roam free from the hungry stares of the stallions who would hoard them like jewels on a string. A place that seemed, as the distance between her and her sky-and-stars widened and the selfish desires of every other male loomed ever closer, to be increasingly well-suited for her and her daughter to start their lives anew. The Peak, she'd learned it was called, and aptly so, its hulking silhouette jutting imposingly into the sky and daring to take up space without asking for permission, or holding it for an ostensibly more-qualified absent man who might never return.

She sees herself in those craggy precipices, in the dappled Amazon standing strong and tall beside her despite the emotion crackling like lightning just below the surface, and wonders at the kinship that might be struck between them after the immediate danger has passed. Something moves in her periphery, pulling her back to the present... and when she focuses on it - really, truly picks it out - her dreams of the future turn to ash in her palms.

Ghostly green eyes pierce Titania where she stands, pinning her on the spot. His cold laughter reaches her first, followed by his scent, verdant and clove-spiced and unforgettable, causing her skin to flush with renewed rage and her bones to turn to ice all at once. Her ears sink back below her tangled mane as she watches him approach, stomping one front hoof in warning. Suspicion colors every line of her posture, the tension in her response to the Paradise King's unexpected arrival sucking all the energy out of the atmosphere and pulling it taut like a bowstring. This little inconvenience, she thinks, shooting dagger-looks between the two stallions, has worn out its welcome, and what tiny joy she might have gleaned from putting the painted youngblood in his place cannot compare to the yawning void of her daughter's absence. Not when Rougaru lords it over her head, bringing it into the light of the rising sun. Not when she could look at her current predicament - the loss of her love, of her home, of her children and her friends and her dignity and everything else that led her right to this point, trapped in the Common between two self-centered jerks who cared about her only as a means to their own ends - and chase it straight back to him, and that fateful day, years ago, when he'd torn her from Rille's loving embrace.

Titania scoffs at his prattling, the other horses around them all but invisible to her now. "I didn't lose my firstborn, you stole her from me," she snaps, punctuating her accusation with a meaningful crack of her knotted tail. His words from their brief, tumultuous encounter last autumn have burned in her mind like sunspots, never once forgotten despite her inability to actually do anything about them, but as he hungrily scans the trees for her wayward daughter, her resolve tightens. He makes her an offer: salvation, answers, protection... anything she could have wanted, and then some, if only she would trade it for the low, low price of her freedom. A bargain, he thinks, from the haughty tone of his voice.

It is her turn, then, to laugh, though the sound comes tainted with incredulity. "How gracious of you, , Rougaru," she says without a drop of gratitude, taking a small step back. "Your kindness truly knows no bounds.

Unfortunately, your majesty," she continues, sarcasm hanging off of every syllable, "you seem to have a problem holding onto your own mares." Another few paces back, spaced with careful precision between her words so that she might avoid drawing attention to her movements for as long as possible. "Forgive me for not having more confidence in your... ah..." She fixes him with a loaded stare, hoping to hold his gaze on her smirking face - and away from her shuffling hooves.

"...abilities."

By this point, she's positioned herself along the opposite tree line. Titania bats long, dark lashes in his direction, taunting him with the scent of her heat using a boldness only the increased distance between them could give. Her head tilts, curious, and her tone shifts to baleful innocence.

"Who's watching them now, I wonder, while you sneak around the Crossing looking for new lives to ruin?" The once-Queen smiles, tucking her chin to her speckled breast, as if she knows something he doesn't. "Perhaps you could learn a thing or two from the bachelors. Not this one, clearly," she adds, dismissively pointing her muzzle in Rehoboam's direction, "but I'm sure someone in that swamp can teach you some new tricks." At the last moment - the span of a heartbeat, perhaps two, no more - she glances at each of the mares in turn, first the spotted girl now far to her right, then the grey, hoping her brief eye contact is enough. Hoping it conveys her appreciation for their efforts to free her from the snare she'd walked right into, however unsuspectingly, and her sorrow at leaving them with the mess. Hoping the fragile bond that had formed between them in this tiny clearing would hold firm, and that when she found Faline - not if, she thought stubbornly, but when - she could circle back and revisit it, head clear and heart open, and pay their charity back in spades.

She looks upon them, her dark eyes holding the thousands of words she dared not speak. Titania spares one last glance for Rougaru and Rehoboam. "Better luck next time," she taunts, disgust staining her words, and with nothing left for the men who'd tried to contain her, she pivots on her heels and bounds noiselessly into the forest's receding shadows, gone without a trace.