HE was here.

At first, Rivka thought it might have been an illusion, a trick of the mind that spoke the words she did not dare think. Like the many other times she imagined chasing Charybdis’ fleeting shadow through the dense jungle paths or hearing Titania’s gentle, soothing voice against her ears as she slept. HE was her secret. A treasured memory that helped her to survive when the world was at it’s darkest.

Peyote.

He had been only a yearling then, when his father forced her to call the Lagoon her home. He had been nothing more than a mud-covered pup with a canine playmate of his own chasing awkwardly at his heels. Yet it was that green-eyed, feral child that drove off the other stallions when they encroached on her space and drew her from the shyness that threatened to envelop her. He forced her into games; and taught her to face the snapping jaws of his companion with hard eyes until the beast learned to back away from her heels. Without realizing it, Peyote had become a fixture in her life until the moment that Tyr brought her back home.

And then he was no more. Like Titania and Charby and Rougaru and Vanya, he was a mere memory. A wound had opened in her heart, a wound that she did not dare confess to Tyr. She was grateful to the great chimera stallion. Tyr had cared for her better than perhaps her own sire ever had. How then could she tell him that she missed her….friend? Was that what he had become then?

And then Peyote had appeared. Amid the torrential deluge that poured from the heavens in what seemed never-ending days, the boy-turned-stallion had all but fallen into the sheltered cave where she sought refuge. In that night, she became a true mare, lost in the rising tide of emotions. Very few words passed between them, at least, so few that she cannot remember much. Had she asked him where his canine companion was? Or why he was here in Atlantis? In the Ridge? She cannot remember.

The first rays of morning light had broken into the cavern. She had awakened to a mere intention in the wet sand and disappearing hoofprints to confess that he had not been a dream. She lay there for hours, watching the sun rise above the horizon and return the cave once more into the darkness of the jungle’s shadows. She lay there and tried to wrap her mind around what had happened and why. She thought until her head ached and she resolved to think of it no more. Reluctantly, she left that small shelter and did not dare to look back. Dark, green blue eyes blink against the bright sunlight as she wanders aimlessly along the shoreline, assessing the damage left in the storm’s wake. It is nothing that could not be undone with time. At least, that is what she tells herself.

Yet again and again, day after day, she finds herself daring to visit the mouth of the cave in search of her friend. But day after day she is greeted by nothing more than a few skittering crabs, fleeing from the shadow she cast.

Finally, she stops visiting. Finally, she stops hoping. She might even have imagined it had been a dream, were it not for the insatiable hunger and growing belly that plagues her. She may not have ever been a mother herself, but she has witnessed enough mare’s growing bellies to know that she will one day have to face that herself. Peyote had not been a dream. But he had left. That perhaps, more than anything else, hurt the worst. Despite the ache, she could not bring herself to blame him. Would not. Instead, she would keep him in her memory as he had once been, the muck and mire-covered youth with feral eyes and a wickedly contagious smile. It was for the best.

Today she found herself seeking solitude once more. She had not spoken to Tyr yet of her… condition and quite frankly, was not sure how to even begin. As a result, she had taken to avoiding the rest of the herd and grazing in solitary silence in small patches of grass they had already abandoned for the day. She waits until the midday sun has passed before chancing a trip to the fresh flowing waters that gurgled from beneath the rocks near the base of the ridge. Cautiously she emerged from the forest’s shadows to find the spring free of intrusion. A soft smile plays across her whiskered lips as the starlight mare wades into the rocky shallows and dips her parched muzzle beneath the shimmering surface to drink deeply of the cool, refreshing waters.