Common

Lucien is pretty sure that the way he and Evrain left it, he’s allowed to stay there and start building a herd. But Things have always been really weird between them – ever since Evrain came back from the Badlands announcing she was dead, and then she turned up alive but in the Peak. Part of Lucien has always wondered…Evrain wanted power, and their Dad wanted Marceline out of the way to get rid of Isik. The fact that her accident happened in the Badlands, that everyone said she was dead and to not bother looking for her, that both Rafe and Evrain were there. Well. Lucien has his suspicions.
But what is he supposed to say? “I’m pretty sure you tried to kill our mom but couldn’t even succeed at that?” Lucien knows that if their dad had tried, Mom would be dead. If he learned anything living in the Badlands after that whole thing, it’s that dad din’t do things by halves.

He wants to be more like them – just without the matricide. They both have herds and children and land. It isn’t the power he craves (although he was born to it as surely as Evrain was), but the stability. He wants to have somewhere safe that he can live, can build a life and maybe a family that doesn’t all constantly fight for power, see everyone outside as a threat and see violence as an act of love.

The Hills probably isn’t that – no where on Salem, nowhere tied to the violent history of his family can be. But Lucien isn’t ready to leave Salem for good, isn’t willing to forsake the only home he’s ever known. Not while he can try to change them by example first.

But to do that, he’s going to need mares, and those are hard to come by (well, ones that don’t live with his family or their allies) on Salem, so that’s why Lucien set out for the Commons the first time in his life. He’d crept up through the Lagoon, opting to shorten his swim and risk the bachelors harrying him. In order to reduce the number of potential fights, he’d made his trip under the light of the moon, hoping like hell to not trip and embarrass himself.

Lucien had made it out unscathed (spared both from Lagoon members and clumsiness), and the first thing he sees in the wide-open swath of land is a mare tumbling from the sea. Clearly, she had not opted for the shorter swim.

She’s very pretty, three colors in the most odd looking combination he’s ever seen on a horse. Fascinated, Lucien glances around. No one else has approached her yet; maybe it isn’t good manners to ambush a mare straight from the sea? Well, it’s his first time here – surely he’d be forgiven a faux-pas?

With a nod to steel his nerves, Lucien approaches her. Once he’s within a reasonable distance, he offers her a quick nicker in greeting, and then says “Did you…have a good swim?” his voice tilts up on the end, even as he winces and internally scolds himself. What a stupid way to start a conversation.