Oswin had come to a difficult decision. Rumors had begun leaking through the island channels that there were bachelors operating beneath the lagoon who were being the natural menaces the bachelors were known to be. While she still believed Tyr wanted to turn over a new leaf for himself and for the future of the Lagoon, she was beginning to think she had prematurely believed in their capabilities. Though she was older and wiser in many ways, Oswin still jumped the gun on many things. This was just another in a long line that told her story.

Today she would visit the Lagoon. It wasn’t to take her new daughter to meet her father, though some part of her ached painfully at that. Oswin would travel alone to tell the bachelors until the Lagoon was no longer responsible for issues among the islands, the Peak would have to begin to intervene with them again. She had accepted that they needed to handle things their own way and had stepped aside but years had passed and the same stories were beginning to rise. She was tired of it.

Oswin affectionately bumped her daughter’s fuzzy red cheek, then smiled. “Let’s go find Fishbone, hm?” She suggested softly, eyes lifting from her daughter to her yearling son, though he was large and gangly enough to look like a much older colt than he was. Oswin planned to leave her children behind with Fishbone as she conducted her business. Oswald would be upset when she returned and told him the option to live with his father in the Lagoon would no longer be something he could choose.

But it had to be done. Something had to be.

Oswin led her children through the foothills at the base of the Peak, seeking out the mare she trusted to look after her foals when she had Peak business to attend to. However, as she walked, Oswin noticed a horse-like shape in the distance, standing atop one of the small rises. She came to a sudden halt, Oswald bumping into her hip and shaking his head as he made a small noise of complaint, then snorted and sniffed the air, trying to figure out why his mother had stopped them without warning. Filumena had pranced a few steps forward but stopped when Oswin did and looked at her brother testing the air, then at her mother, and then to where Oswin was looking.

Oswin did not recognize this stranger. She glanced aside at her children and then back before lifting her muzzle up in the air and calling out to him with a boisterous whinny. The call wasn’t exactly for him, though. The call would alert any of her sisters nearby that there was someone their Prime Minister did not know who she was greeting. Hopefully if this was trouble it would bring Oswin some help. She did not like the thought of leading her children into danger.

“Oswald, there is a stallion- over there-” Oswin gently tapped her son's shoulder, then cheek, pointing his face in the direction the stallion stood. “We’re going to go greet him and see what he wants. If I tell you to take Filumena and run, bring her to the Peak’s base.” Though Oswald was blind, Oswin trusted him to know exactly what to do and where to go. He had spent countless hours of his entire existence memorizing this territory and learning to be as independent as he could manage.

“Yes, Mama.” Oswald’s voice was a mix now between colt and growing stallion, sometimes teetering on deep, but mostly still rather soft, sweet, and high.

Oswin nodded then turned and started for the stranger. Her children followed behind her, both much larger and therefore appearing somewhat older than they actually were. Filumena did not take on the thick draft build of her father like her brother had, but it was still clear she was going to be a very large mare when she grew up. Though she’d only been born at the beginning of the season, the blanketed dun looked like she was already half a year old.

“Hello,” Oswin called out to him once she’d walked up the incline of the hill and stopped, stretching her neck to share careful breaths, smelling the sea on his skin. “I am Oswin, Prime Minister of the Peak.” Her chin lifted proudly as she declared it. Despite her own inner turmoil about her capabilities as Prime Minister it was a position that should always be shown as strong. Especially to unknown stallions. “What brings you to the home of my sisters?”

Purposefully she had not introduced her children. They hung back at her hips, Filumena’s young eyes full of the stranger with bright curiosity as Oswald sniffed the air and pointed his ears, trying to catch any noise that would help him build an understanding of where the stallion was.

oswin & oswald
this is as brave as I know how to be.
I know it’s gonna hurt you, but please… be a little proud of me.