Imagine if she had known. Imagine if she had known exactly what had happened to the spotted stallion when he had been a child, and if she had known that his life had been fraught with conflict and that he had been a victim to needless shaming. Sehrish would have rubbed her face against his shoulder and perhaps promised to never let him go.

She would say that they would go chasing rainbows and she could show him faraway places that were painted more colours than they could even dream of. She would try to show him the world that she grew up in, where her mother had sung her soft lullabies at night when tucking the girl to sleep, she would drag him before her father who was a wizened old soul, with drooping eyes that twinkled whenever the sun went down for the day.

Sehrish had a family somewhere in that faraway place that she had come from, and she had not a clue that her dearest duckling had nothing left to go back to if he were to grow bored or weary of the islands and the forests here. The thought of being without family or even a familiar group to integrate herself into was intimidating and terrifying, and while she doesn't think about never being a part of a large number, there are some days that she believes she might be alone forever. Even while she has the spotted stallion here sharing shadows with her in the forest, her chin pressed against the slope of his back where his croup meets his tail, there was something so satisfying and comforting about being able to blend into a group.

With a soft giggle at his confused sounding words, she leans gently into the touch of his nose and smiles, staring off into the trees in some seemingly random direction, as if the others that she was looking for were somewhere in the distance there. “I mean there are other horses here, duckling!” Wiggling her head, she rubs her chin against his rump before speaking up again. “Do you know them?” She had no idea of the agreement that Indian Hemp held with the other stallion here, and she knew even less of his lack of enthusiasm for speaking to these other horses. She was so blissfully unaware of his flaws, this one.