Orhan

His surprise at Arcana's words silenced his weeping almost immediately. With a trembling inhale, the stallion pulled away from the mare to look her in the face, and regarded her with a quiet disbelief on his tear-stained expression. "Are you sure?" he asked, his voice coming out in a weak croak, but he knew he was being silly. Obviously Arcana would not have said such a thing if she did not mean it.

He turned to look at their daughter, who had taken a few hobbling steps closer to her mother's dark flank, and was nosing instinctively at the swollen warmth of Arcana’s milk. Orhan took a moment, as if he were considering the possibilities, but in truth, he already knew what he wanted to call her. He had wanted to suggest this name to Arcana a long time ago, when it became evident she was pregnant with Indira, but it had not felt appropriate at the time, given what she had been going through.

"Evren," he said. "I'd like to call her Evren. It means 'cosmos' in my mother's tongue..." His voice trailed off, cut off by his throat tightening with emotion. Arcana was the love of his life, and their children were his world. He hoped she would see the train of thought that had gone into picking this name, for he could no longer speak without the risk of breaking down again.

His heart ached at the fact that his mother could not be here to meet her grandchildren, and he realized suddenly that he had never told Arcana that El Aran had passed away. He made a mental note to tell her later. He would not spoil his daughter's birth by speaking of the dead.