Even with her clearer vision, Aurora still finds herself inexplicably shy. She takes a minute to steady herself before looking back up at Bob, his smile still in place. The first time she’d met him and Talya, she’d found it so sweet that he’d been willing to settle into a relaxing life that hadn’t included plans to lead a herd. She’d never thought of stallions as being capable of letting someone else control the herd, but Bob had been ready to do it for the sake of his daughter.

She laughs when he mentions said daughter. ”Oh, I wouldn’t worry about Talya,” she says, affection for the girl obvious as her tail flicks passively. ”She sees the world differently but she’s smart. And most stallions around here these days seem to be reasonable. It wasn’t like that before my time.”

She longs to tell him about how she had been born in a strange territory because her mother had been stolen away right before her birth. It had taken weeks to finally meet her father, and it had likely been because of that early separation that she’d never met her father’s herd. Between her disability and her parents’ fears of being separated again, they’d been overprotective of her to the point of keeping her isolated.

She can hear that same protectiveness in Bob’s voice and her smile turns sympathetic. She doesn’t have any firsthand experience with having to worry about her child going out into the world, but she’d been on the receiving end, so she can kind of relate.

She screws up her expression and echoes his chuckle. ”Somehow, I doubt that if another stallion were to live here, I would be the one to draw his interest.”

It’s not a knock against herself, but rather her high opinion of Persephone. She admires the mare for not feeling the need to have a stallion close by, confident in her own ability to watch over the Forest. Aurora would never be able to pull that off, even in a world where she wouldn’t be able to be taken advantage of so easily. At least she can be sure that here, now, she is safe.