She shouldn’t sulk so much. Her mother would never have wanted this for her. She can’t stop replaying in her mind her confrontation with Evren. The thought of Orhan’s death had been so unthinkable that she’d verbally lashed out at his daughter and fled. Nobody she had once known would have recognized her in that moment; she’d never looked so wild and unhinged.
It had taken days of little food and less sleep before she’d finally broken, and her rational mind had returned. Evren would have had no reason to lie to her, as someone unaware of their shared family history, but Scylla had been blind and deaf to the terrible truth at that moment. By now, she’s had time to get used to the idea, but it doesn’t make it any easier to swallow.
She’s also had to adjust to being truly alone for the first time. Even when she’d first come back to the islands, she’d held out hope that her mother would turn up out of the blue like she had numerous times before. As time has worn on, Scylla has lost that hope. With Orhan’s loss, the last link to good times in the Desert has evaporated.
She makes for a pitiful black and white shape trotting through the meadow. The temperature has been struggling to remain consistent as winter draws ever closer. Her thicker coat has only begun to grow in, so on a warmer day like today she’s not uncomfortable. She hasn’t yet decided what to do today – the vegetation has been growing steadily browner and looks unappealing at the moment – when she spots a big brown lump out of the corner of her eye.
With nothing better to do, she takes the detour toward the vaguely horse-shaped figure. She’s careful not to get too close, just in case, but her eyes are drawn to the stranger’s ears. Orhan’s words come back to her, ears which curve in toward each other, and she can only stare.
She will always cherish that conversation with Orhan, the stallion who would have been her brother under different circumstances, and she suddenly realizes that subconsciously she hasn’t stopped looking for Arcana, even with Orhan gone. She swallows and nickers quietly, hoping not to startle the mare. She doesn’t know if it’s just a coincidence to run across someone with curved ears when she’d been reminiscing about her family. Still, she’d made the mistake of and been the victim of assumptions, so she decides to keep an open mind.
”Are you okay?” she asks softly. Of course she would come across perhaps the one figure who looks more woebegone than herself.