No one expects an
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Kohelet began to answer the chocolate colored mare that approached, her heart hammering nervously in her chest. Beside her, the little red filly frowned and shook her head - oversized ears flopping side to side.
"Nuh uh! We're in the Commons, Mama. You said so!"
Kohelet chuckled, offering her daughter a wan smile and a ruffle of her mane again, somewhat soothed by the normalcy of Amalia's playful defiance.
"You are right, my love." Her gaze lifted back to the older mare and she was struck by the feeling that she should know her somehow, though Koh was absolutely certain she had never lain eyes on this mare before. She was strikingly beautiful, despite her age, but entirely unlike any of her painted kin which made it even harder to place her and what suspicions she might have had were soothed by the mare's kind demeanor and gentle question.
"My name is Kohelet, and this is Amalia. We were... looking for a new home, I suppose." Her cheeks flushed with shame, though she could not have pinpointed what shame there was to be found in searching for a new home. Only that in abandoning her family in the Bay and then running from the chance to fix it all in the Badlands, she felt unworthy of the new start she was now seeking. There was a part of her, however, that relished the thought of leaving with a mare instead of a stallion, a sense of relief that she would not be pressured to start some new romantic entanglement. Guilt followed that relief and she tucked them both to a corner of her mind.
"Yeah, we used to live in the Badlands, and a'fore that, momma lived in the Bay and the Cove." Amalia blathered on, eager for someone new to talk to and for a chance to show off everything she had learned from her mother. Kohelet rarely spoke of her time before the Badlands, which, of course, meant that Amalia remembered every tiny, sordid detail she'd been able to glean. Puffing out her chest and drawing herself up to her full height, she offered a wide, beaming smile for the brown mare.
"I'm gonna visit 'em all someday."
A ping of alarm shot through the monochrome mare as her daughter named the places she'd been, and her gaze shot to the other adult again.
"Sorry," she murmured, her heart in her throat. Had Fell stolen from this mare before? Or harmed her the way he'd harmed Viveka?
"She's very excited." She murmured gently, nudging the girl's hip with her foreleg,
"I apologize for the assumption, but are you here to offer a place for us to stay?"