As the stallion began to finally let his tears free, Oswin allowed him the space to do so. A frown of sympathy pulled at her lips, but the gold-and-white mare did little else in that moment. She hadn’t thought of the memory in years but suddenly, watching the red stallion cry in front of her, Oswin remembered when she had been a foal in the Prairie. She’d come across her brother, though she didn’t know it was her brother at the time, and found him watching her, in tears. It’d been the first time she had seen someone distraught, and she remembered the concern and need to protect that had welled up inside her. It was that drive that had always kept her going, through everything. Her unending need to step in and help wherever she felt she could make a difference.

The Lagoon wishes to stay tainted and with the horses there currently, any change I try to make will never come to fruition.

Change. Oswin’s head lifted somewhat, and her white ears perked forward. This young stallion was doing what Tyr had tried to do? What Rade had tried to do? Two older, established stallions who had been a part of the system of the Lagoon for likely three times as long as Nahawi had been alive. She found a thread of respect starting for him, even slumped, and injured and in tears as he was in front of her.

He confessed he was the Boss, and the respect that was starting to grow lifted considerably. Was she a fool to start feeling hope again? Oswin had been dashed so far down when hers and Tyr’s plan had failed, it had thrust her into such a deep depression she hadn’t been herself for years… but just the whisper that someone was still out there trying to do the impossible gave her hope.

“You were right to be told to talk to Tyr,” she confessed after Nahawi admitted it, then allowed a rueful grin to curve her lips. “Maybe we don’t mention the fight until after you’ve talked to him about all of this.” Although Oswin had a feeling Tyr would take one look at Oswin limping about for the next few days and this injured red stallion and put two-and-two together himself; he was a smart man, and he knew how feisty his queen was.

“You’re not a sorry excuse for a Lagoon Boss, Nahawi.” She said plainly in the quiet that followed. Oswin was looking at him, but all the pity that she’d worn earlier was gone. She might empathize with him, but she was beginning to understand the uphill battle he was facing. “What you are trying to do, others have tried to do before you. Others who had lived in the Lagoon for years before they tried to change it.” It was difficult to voice her own faults, especially to a stranger, particularly to the Lagoon Boss, but Oswin swallowed her pride and admitted, “Tyr was the last boss to try and reform the Lagoon. I was Prime Minister of the Peak, and we tried to unite and act as one.” Her voice did not sound hopeful or happy, it was quite clear that this was not a wonderful story. She concluded with a heavy heart, “It blew up in our face so badly that we decided to leave them behind and look to setting up our own home here in the Ridge.” He couldn’t possibly know that to Tyr and Oswin, the Lagoon and the Peak had been their true home and it’d broken their hearts to realize they could no longer fight the way they wanted to. Even now, they both confessed that they missed the days of being General.

“It gives me hope to know someone as young as yourself is still there trying.” She admitted, her voice warming somewhat. “But I understand better than most, so does Tyr, the uphill battle you have taken on.”

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.