Common

Taurus woke from his sleep with a smile. He smiled at the touch of Eirlys' lips on his skin, more gentle and more welcome than the sun on a cold autumn day. He smiled because he could hear the rhythmic breathing of their daughter nearby as she slept. He smiled at the perfect life they'd carved out for themselves in this little madow. It was the sort of perfection that he'd never even thought to dream of as a very young boy, lost as he was between the man his father had been and who he had wanted to be.

Stability and happiness were myths that only the truly privileged ever managed to enjoy… and he had never been among the privileged, until now. Eirlys had made the difference.

He shifted without opening his eyes, wanting to preserve the perfect peace of this moment just a little longer. Taurus fully expected to feel the familiar shape of his lover's warm shoulder against his own, but as he moved the illusion shattered. The soft touch of her muzzle on his neck was a damp, autumn leaf that had plastered itself to his skin in the breeze he had mistaken for his daughter's breathing. Disoriented, he felt his too-tired figure fall unceremoniously backward without the comfortable bulwark of Eirlys' shoulder to stop him. Cold mud, made wet and thick by multiple rounds of freezing and thawing, immediately caked against his silvery-golden coat. Shocked and flustered at the sudden sensation, he squealed in surprise and flung his legs akimbo in an attempt to scramble away from the unpleasant feeling.

By the time he'd managed to roll onto his chest and heft his lean body upright, he was entirely caked in mud on one side - from face to tail - and quivering with the abrupt return to reality on such a frigid morning. Being upright brought clarity back, and the whole miserable truth of his situation trickled in.

There was no Eirlys anymore.

No Anwen.

And no peace and happiness.

He was alone now, with nothing to his name and no one to return to.

"Come on," he muttered in exasperation as he craned his slender head around to peer at the damage. It wasn't that the young stallion was particularly vain, but he also doubted that anyone would find him worth taking home if he looked like nothing more than a homeless vagrant, even if he was just a homeless vagrant. Wrinkling his muzzle in distaste, Taurus walked on limbs that prickled with pins and needles from laying down on them for too long, and began to laboriously scrape the mud from his coat. If he had any hope of finding somewhere new to live, he knew that he needed to look better than whatever this was. And while plunging himself back into the ocean would probably be faster… he wanted no part of the ocean's chill this early in the morning.

ooc: open to anyone <3