she is relieved when he says she doesn’t owe him anything. he was clearly a different type of stallion than warsaw. she offers her name with no thought the he might want it for reasons other than a polite introduction. she doesn’t see herself as someone who could be attractive at that moment. she feels like a coward, shameful, and ugly. my name is petal. i come from… from the isle of luthien. she doesn’t want to disclose that she has come directly from the prairie. while he clearly doesn’t seem like the type to come after her or stir up unnecessary trouble she still fears the consequences of her journey here may come back to haunt her or her family as estranged as she may feel from them. she tries to smile back as he turns to depart and her eyes shine in thanks.
the small slender mare no longer has the benefit of youth to hide her faults behind. as she stands alone, the hard sun of tinuvel glaring down at her back, her mind wanders. she knows shamwari will not be surprised to find her gone. she believes it would please him in some ways… but wonders if it would please him as much as it would disappoint him. he is not cruel. in fact he has always shown to be just the opposite. he is caring, strong, family oriented… much less flawed than she is… but she also knows that somewhere in his soul there must at least be an ounce of vindictiveness. in her heart she feels he would take, at least a small amount, some pleasure in her abandonment of jabari…
she, of course, doesn’t see it as abandonment. she felt confused… lost. the toils of motherhood had fulfilled her but stolen some of her attention from the young stallion who held her heart. she didn’t know if she should feel guilty? if she should feel angry at jabari for investing wasted interest in the mare celestria…. for risking their safety by stirring up trouble.. was it she that had driven him to it? she had left him and his attentions unsatisfied… this idea is almost sickening to her. she had spent her whole life avoiding that type of responsibility.
she hasn’t been waiting long when she sees the smokey form of vita nova. she nickers back quietly to the mare she had travelled to see and is ashamed that she has made vita nova so worried. she shrugs off the idea of her discomfort at the weather… she feels so separated from her body right now… buried deep in her thoughts. she immediately speaks to calm the fears of her friend her voice soft and delicate. on the verge of cracking. they are fine… well they are ok. Jabari has been sent to the lagoon for endangering the safety of the prairie by angering warsaw… shamwari…well i… we… things are.. our relationship as friends i think has been broken beyond repair when things transpired how they did with jabari…i don’t blame him. i just needed to get away. i didn’t know who else to go to… she hangs her head in guilt… knowing that what she had really just admitted to was a second abandonment of vita nova’s brother. would she still offer the same sympathy she had when they first met? petal didn’t know what she wanted from the mare… she just knew that she was the only other being away from the prairie who could keep her tethered to her family at all.