Xina watches Rade go, the waves swallowing him from view. Only when her gaze cannot rest upon his back anymore does she look to the pathetic burden he has left behind. Reaching her muzzle down to him, Xina inspects him further. She had not asked for his name, had not cared for it. For now she had no reason to call for him or for others to utter the sound. She wonders if she should seek Sahin, to allow the stallion the knowledge of her new charge. But the boy has probably seen enough new changes this day and the mare seeks for quiet instead of chaos.


Turning, she walks back to where she had lain just beneath a palm tree with an excellent view of the water but brush standing tall enough to keep them hidden from prying eyes. Only then does she look back to the boy with an expectant glance, standing so that he could easily nurse should he try. His body would heal better if it had something to work off of while he slept, but both were needed with a desperation only time could heal.


Words do not leave her lips in encouragement nor direction; sound is not something she is ready to admit. Too much swirled within her mind of Rade’s parting words, a grief that she had held back since his disappearance. Whether it was by death or his own will, Debonaire was not returning. In her mind she had held onto some kind of hope that she had done her best to hide with her hate, even from herself. But there was no hiding now but she would not cry. Xina would not allow the emotion she felt ride upon her face for others to see. What she felt was her own and not for others to witness, but mentally she wailed in grief as her already shattered heart gave a hard thump and broke even more.


Slowly her mind calmed, leaving in its wake a sort of numbness. It left the mare confused, uncertain and lost upon the life she was to have now. That small hope that was now gone had held her to this land of sun and sand but the tie had been broken. Eyes casting back to the child she knew she would not leave this territory, even as the muscles beneath her roan skin tensed with the need to flee into the consuming salt water and never return. Xina was true to her word and would raise the boy, make him into the man she knew would change the Islands just as every kin of Debonaire’s had. But he would not be like Rade.


Eyes narrowing, Xina knew what lay ahead of her now. Why she had been given this burden and what she was to teach him. This son of the sea would not know the meaning of weak. She would push him, challenge him until he was a sight to see yet mentally prepare him for the battle it would take to fight away the darkness that plagued the man who had been his savior. Xina would teach him the true meaning of a leader, to be merciless and merciful all in the same seconds of life. Before her life was done this boy would lead the land his father once called home.