Pregnancy did not suit Miriella, and motherhood wasn’t going any better. She had been given no shining examples of what a mother was in her life, losing hers very shortly after she’d been pushed out into the world. The words may have never been said, but Miriella was very much aware her mother had never wanted her, and as soon as she could be free of her, she had been. Because of this there had been a part of Miriella who hoped she could be and do the opposite. She could give her growing child all the love and compassion and inclusion that she never received herself.
Wanting and doing are, of course, two very different things. The more Miriella found motherhood was not natural to her and the more she found herself overall annoyed with her daughter, the angrier she grew. Not at the child, but at fate and at herself. Unfortunately for both her and her daughter it manifested into an irritability that made her daughter understand the things Miriella had never wanted her to know.
She was not wanted either.
Spring went and then summer, too. Elaine grew stronger and bigger, more sure-footed on her impossibly long legs. She was a very pale girl, but in the shadows of the Lagoon and its wet marsh she was often slick and dark with mud. She liked to explore and Miriella liked to let her. She would follow her daughter, only interjecting if she caught wind of another horse, driving Elaine away in the opposite direction. Miriella still did not trust any horse who lived in the Lagoon, despite having been trinket here herself and mostly undisturbed for so long.
A similar day had come where Miriella was standing under the shade of a large tree, near the edge of peaceful water that lightly lapped the mineral-rich bank. Elaine was splashing, rattling cattails as she marched around and through them in the shallows, legs covered black with mud. From her delighted squeals Miriella guessed she was looking for frogs again - the way they jumped away to flee from her always seemed to amuse the girl. Miriella’s elegant, dished face was turned toward the water, only glancing a glimpse here and there of her pale daughter among the reeds when she felt the sudden sting of tears well up in her eyes and a pain squeezing her heart.
She inhaled sharply and dropped her face to rub the tears away before they could fall and before any evidence of them could stick. Miriella did not cry. She was not weak.
“Keep chasing frogs, Elaine.” She spoke up when she trusted her voice not to shake, and made sure her tone sounded firm and even a little mean. Anything to keep the girl from wanting to follow her. Without waiting for a reply, Miriella flicked her pale threads of her tail at her hind and started to walk, moving with more determination and less aimlessness as she normally did.
It was time she faced Vadim. Time she stopped hiding at least from the truth that she now understood: she was not fit to be a mother; Elaine needed to be taken to the Prairie and dropped off with her father and his herd. Not that Vadim knew Miriella had family on the islands, nor did her family know this was where she was kept. She would like to continue operating that way, too. The most he needed to know was that she would make sure their daughter was going to be somewhere safe, but that the best thing for her was going to be to take her far, far away from Miriella.
Maybe Leliel would look after her…
The pain doubled this time when it hit her chest, enough that Miriella stumbled slightly in her gait and exhaled a hard sigh. She swallowed back to push down the heartache that always bubbled up at the thought of her sister, and let her thoughts be bitter so she wouldn’t be soft. Leliel, having had a loving mother, was a mare prone to sweetness naturally. She would be a perfect mother for Elaine.
It did not take long for Miriella to pull a stronger thread of Vadim’s scent away from the stale traces that hung heavy all over the Lagoon. A furious storm of emotions immediately swarmed up inside her, just at the thought of sharing close space with Vadim again. Miriella flicked her ears back with annoyance and continued walking forward. It was easier to avoid him, easier that way to pretend all these emotions were falsified or misplaced. Being near him again meant bringing all the ways he made her feel to the surface.
But he at least deserved to know she aimed to send their child away, right? Regardless of his apparent lack of interest in siring their child or knowing her, Miriella didn’t think it would be right of her to stuff Elaine off somewhere without telling him first. If anything, the way Vadim seemed to feel regarding their child helped Miriella to believe he would have no issue in her decision. She assumed she could cross his path, curtly tell him what she planned to do, and then turn and leave all in the shortest amount of time possible. No extra minutes, no lingering space for all of those feelings inside her to become something else.
So, Miriella walked, trailed his smell, and was certain that it would be very soon she would finally manage to find him.
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