“Zjeena?”


It was the first time Wren had ever spoken the mare’s name as it called out towards the woman just as she reached the shore. The pale painted girl had followed the departing queen since she had disappearance among the pines from the view of the herd. Guilt lay like a rock in Wren’s heart as she looked upon the broad tawny back now, her ears flicking forward and then back in her uncertainty. Liland would probably be angry that she was here, but it was something that she had to do. Something she felt she owed the woman who no longer belonged among this family.


“I’m sorry.” Wren stated, her voice stronger now as her ears remained forward. So many nights she had stayed silent as the raised voices drifted through the air. The tension that weighed so heavily upon the herd. It made Wren a coward and although she was many things, she had never once thought herself a coward. “I never once tried to help, and I’m sorry.” Even if she was not Queen, or Second; Wren could have helped somehow. Even if she wasn’t to take sides, she could have asked for the fighting to stop. For the children, for the herd, for the health of the pregnant mares. Any reason she could have found to make peace between the two leads.