Of all the horses she expected to see first, an unknown foal was certainly not one of them. With the smell of Tyr saturated along this shoreline it was the tall, striking stallion she had thought she would see, but Oswin found herself looking down into the wide, innocent eyes of a young filly. Who are you? The girl, who looked no older than a few seasons at best, asked. Oswin smiled.

“I’m Oswin, I believe I live here now, with Tyr.” She replied; Oswin had been born in a large herd on Luthien, but had left the moment she was mature to become a Peak warrior. She had never followed a stallion to a previously occupied territory and taken it for their own. As she reflected on the young thing looking up at her, Oswin considered the family who’d been living here prior. While she had made a point to know the politics of each island when she’d been more invigorated in her Peak mission, the last year or so of her depression had numbed her against caring so greatly that Oswin realized she couldn’t remember who’d led the Ridge. It had been… a mare… hadn’t it?

She blinked and smiled, trying her best to appear kind and welcoming to the filly, unable to keep herself from thinking of her own foals when they’d been this girl’s age. “Who are you?”

She doubted Tyr’s attempt at leading the way he wished would mean uprooting this family, but Oswin also knew there were those on the islands who had been witness and victim to his former brutality… and she knew Roisin’s family was of the Ridge… Before she could create scenarios to fight in her head that didn’t need fighting, Oswin made herself pay more attention to the young filly she was talking with. “I’ve never lived on Atlantis before,” she confessed, “Do you like it here?” Not that she imagined the young thing had experience living anywhere else.

oswin
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.