róisín

Rói it isn't like that, he says and he smiles. He smiles. The motion is so incongruous to the emotions she's battling through that she recoils in discomfort, her dark-tipped ears flicking warily to and fro. How could he smile while she felt like her heart was breaking?

Thankfully, her pale companion launches immediately into a much-needed explanation, but rather than his words soothing her, they only incite her frustration further and her face darkens. The longer he talks, the more she realizes that she didn't understand him the same way that she'd thought she did.

She thought of those long summers with her siblings and cousins. Days spent plotting ways to decorate his coat or to cheer him up or to distract him with idle conversation until he smiled. She'd taken all of those moments and entangled them with her own warm regard. Watching him play with the children and comfort them had shown her beyond a doubt that he would be a good father, could be a good father, if someone only gave him a chance.

If only he would give himself a chance.

Instead, the longer that she listens, the more she comes to understand that he did not view children in the same way that she did. To him, Faolain's request was no more than a business arrangement, devoid of the sort of passion and love that the dun girl had always imagined went into creating a wanted child. And to her, it was a new life. A new chance. A new opportunity. A child that needed it's parents to surround them.

I don't even want to. The words carve furrows in her mind, restlessly pinging around until their meaning is reduced to its very essence. He didn't want to, because he didn't even want the child in the first place. Bitterness pools in her mouth and she turns away from him, her lips pulled into a deep frown as she works to sort through the emotions that threaten to overwhelm her. She couldn't decide who she disliked more in this moment - Iscariot for being so cavalier about the life he'd helped create, or the selfish black mare who had asked it of him.

I do love her, he says and her frown deepens, stretching further even though she cannot bear to look at him. I love her enough to stay away, he says and she aches with the possibility that her father had used that same excuse for being absent in her life.

...And let her have the best two parents she could ever ask for. The high-handed way he dismissed himself as an option and placed Faolain and Rivaini on a pedestal infuriated her. While she might deeply respect and value the influence of the Ridge's matriarchs, she would not venture so far as to call either of them stellar parents (especially when some small jealous part of her hated them right now). They had improved over the years, but Faolain was still as emotionally unavailable as the sky and Rivaini spent too much time hiding out in the jungle. And considering the state of affairs with Hades' father, neither of them seemed to make great decisions either.

When she had needed something as a girl, something that she couldn't go to her mom for, or to Ailill for, she didn't turn to either of them. She'd turned to Iscariot.

"No," she snarls, the word harsh in her mouth as she turns to face him with ears pinned indignantly and her head held high. "You would be the best parent that baby could ask for, but you're too afraid to try."

For a beat, there is only silence apart from the angry lashing of her messy tail. Sucking in a steadying breath, she lifted her head even further. "You raised me just as much as Ailill and my father did, and yet you refuse to give yourself any credit." One pale hoof lifted to strike at the craggy rock as emphasis. "You would be a good dad, if you would just trust yourself a little bit."

"... that baby deserves to know you, Iscariot. Even if you want to uphold this ridiculous uncle scheme and claim no ownership of their creation, they deserve to know that you care." Swallowing hard, she wilted beneath his steady gaze. "... You do care, don't you?"

mare . 3 . mutt . dun sabino . 14.3 hh . björn x siobhan . love

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