The quiet greeted Oswin’s sharp, loud cry, but not for long. It wasn’t a stallion who charged forward, intent to gloat over her loss and subsequent captivity within the Lagoon, but another mare. The panic in her inspired strength in Oswin, whose eyes widened as she went stiff, her head lifting upward, alert. Her ears twitched and she immediately glanced around the inner circumference of where they stood as if expecting to see a wobbly-legged foal standing there, unsupervised. Of course there was no foal in the immediate vicinity, for if there was, this mare wouldn’t have been so panicked.

“I haven’t,” Oswin admitted, but wasted no time limping forward, favoring her right front shoulder. “Let’s walk the perimeter; we’ll have better luck searching together.” Gone was any thought to her own predicament or her anger toward the bachelor stallions. Right now Oswin was completely and totally focused on this mare and her lost daughter, feeling a pinch in her heart to think of Klara caught in a similar situation. Of course, thinking of her daughter only served as a swift, bitter reminder for Oswin concerning she wasn’t sure when next she would see Klara… but alas, she was able to pull her conscious mind completely toward the situation at hand and disregard her own personal needs for the time being.

She started forward, turning for the opposite direction the mare had come and beginning to walk the border of the Lagoon, keeping her eyes peeled for a stranded foal, her ears twitching as she listened for any noise that might give a foal (or a deranged stallion who’d hurt a defenseless child) away. “Have you and your daughter been here long in the Lagoon?” Oswin asked, her eyes jumping back to the frightened mare.

Maybe this was why fate had brought her here… maybe Oswin was meant to meet this mare after all and help her find her lost foal.

oswin
this is as brave as I know how to be.
I know it’s gonna hurt you, but please… be a little proud of me.