Common

It’s the stallion’s confession that he’d lost his mother when he was young that stilled Apolline and distracted her from her woes. Her sad eyes went a little wide with surprise, then dimmed with a sort of shared and understood sorrow. King Björn and his family had done their best to educate Apolline about the islands, and the way she had taken to understanding it was that every island was split into four separate kingdoms - even if they didn’t operate like a normal kingdom. But it was the island she first came in on with the Peak and the Lagoon that seemed very strange to her.

“Oh,” she sighed, “it doesn’t seem very fair that you’d be cursed for something you couldn’t control.” But Apolline knew curses didn’t care about what was fair and what was not, so she only said it to be sympathetic to him. “I’m sorry… about your mother.” Her sad eyes held his gaze. “It hurts… when you lose them.” She looked down at her hooves and sniffled.

Apolline only looked up when he spoke of change that had come to Tinuvel and that it had pushed him to Luthien. So… it hadn’t only been King Björn who left? Well… she couldn’t have been responsible for what happened at the Bay! Apolline had never stepped one hoof there! She’d only left the Inlet to go to the Savanna and back here, the same beach the kind King Björn had taken her from.

Although hope stirred in her chest, Apolline tried not to hold too tightly to it. She still had to be cautious, there was still absolutely a chance she was a curse…

But he wanted to help her…

And Apolline didn’t want to be alone.

“You’re very brave,” she said in a small voice, looking up rather shyly at him. “I… I tried to run away, because I was scared… like I always do. Like I did… to get cursed.” Apolline’s dainty head dropped with shame. “Do you really think I could do it? I could… start over?” She looked up at him and again felt that warm bloom of hope beginning from her heart.

apolline
along with the sunshine
there's gotta be a little rain some time