The Lagoon.
Klara knew well of the Lagoon. When she was nearly a year grown her mother had lost a battle to a stallion of the Lagoon known as Ernesto and sacrificed herself to become their captive. She was not policed as to her comings and goings, which meant Klara was able to meet with her mother on occasion in the falls or the meadow, but never near the muck and mire of the Lagoon. Oswin forbade such a thing and now, with the tides changing, she was even more forceful with Klara as to how far she should stay from the place.
Klara didn’t quite understand why it was such a big deal, but as she teetered on the cusp of nearing adulthood and leaving her days of foalhood behind her, she wanted to behave as if she did.
“My mother was captive of the Lagoon nearly a year.” She mentioned it idly, though her eyes drifted from Drika to Santiago, studying his expression as a hawk would peer down at a field, waiting for a sign it should swoop and attack. Of course, it was of her mother’s own doing she had stayed as long as she had, but that was a fact Klara didn’t intend to bring up unless pressed. Her blue eyes laid on Santiago still. “She’s now the Prime Minister of the Peak. She was the General at the time.”
So maybe she was acting a little bratty, dropping the importance of her dam’s rank to the ears of a colt younger than she. Minding herself once she realized what she was doing, Klara pressed for a wider and forcibly gentler smile. Just because her mother saw the Lagoon as an enemy to be wary of didn’t necessarily mean Santiago was a part of it. He was a child, just as she and Drika were. They were not enemies.
But he could grow up to be one of the Lagoon bachelors if he was spending his life there…
“Drika and I should never see the likes of the Lagoon,” Klara started, shifting her weight to brush her coat against Drika’s, emphasizing their closeness. “Do you find you like it? My mother said some places were awfully muddy.” She wondered if he would tell them what it was like… she wondered if he loved the home he lived in and would never want to leave it.
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