Maybe it was easier to talk about since he’d said it to Harlequin. Maybe it was easier to talk about now that he’d accepted what he’d never wanted to accept – death happened. Whether Tarrant wanted it to or not, death always reached an icy grip around the hearts of those he loved. “Yes, it was long, long ago.” Tarrant felt aged in that moment, thinking of all the stallions that stood in his father’s Bay and made their own families within its borders. He’d never been able to visit the place, not since Jareth’s death, thinking it might strike melancholy too heavily on his heart. “My father died,” he said and swallowed after the words left him. Though Tarrant tried to say it as fact (it had, after all, been at least eleven or twelve years since Jareth’s passing) the words were still tainted by loss. “I decided to visit a random island,” he’d been trying to run away, he’d been in a panic, “and I stumbled onto Atlantis, found this place called the Shore to be empty and decided to call it home.” It had been so different from Tinuvel that it had soothed the aches of his past and given him what he had wanted: a new start. “That was back when the islands had kings and I became king of Atlantis.”

Tarrant’s green eyes drifted and rested quietly on Sokka as the gleaming reddish colt answered the filly’s question of bugs and mentioned the nearby fresh water hole. A slight curve of a smile caught the corners of his lips when the colt’s eyes shot to him. A part of him ached for Sokka – fatherless and motherless, though not by death but by circumstance. Tarrant hoped one or the other would come and Sokka would not have to know loss as early as Tarrant had to.

His attention returned to Stardust and he was pleased to know he’d guessed right – Harlequin was a sister to this filly and they had another by the name of Luana. Tarrant nearly chuckled, wondering if he’d just happen to meet this girl as well, off exploring and learning all the ways of the world.

As they reached the water Tarrant watched her crash into its cool depths, allowing it to splash up and wet her painted skin. It was Sokka’s question that distracted him, bringing Tarrant’s eyes back to the colt where one ear pointed on him and the other swiveled in the direction that Stardust happily suckled down water. Again – Tarrant nearly chuckled. “Boys, girls, everyone can be distracted, just depends on the personality.” Tarrant, for one, when he was a more excitable sort, was very, very easily distracted. He smiled, just a faint, soft, hint of a smile. “You’ll meet all sorts of horses of both genders. Some you’ll like, some you won’t.”