Eve had quickly discovered that her father was not residing in their old home. So where was he? Luthien was the only island she had personally known, but she’d been advised to go to the crossing isle and search there before looking for her father in the herds on the other islands. Though she’d never been herself, she had heard rumor that a certain area was to be avoided lest she be forced home with someone. As it was not her aim to find a herd for herself just yet, she heeded the warning and would avoid the common.
Her swim over to the biggest island in the chain had of course been less strenuous than her swim from the mainland to Luthien, but her steadily swelling barrel made it seem more difficult. She heaved herself from the water and immediately shook herself out as best she could. Winter was not the time to stand idle with a sopping wet hide. Eve doubted her father was here, but she set out into the dying meadow before her anyway. The long stalks of dry grass brushed at her dark legs and mottled belly, causing her skin to twitch every few moments. She drank in the sights around her, hoping to catch the flash of her father’s white-capped rump.
At last she saw a pale flash. She pricked her dark ears and excitedly changed course. The back of her throat burned, though, as she realized it was not her father but an even paler equine. Furthermore, the stature was far too short to be her father. Disappointment flooded her breast, but she continued in the same direction anyway, glancing at the stranger every few seconds. She didn’t have a particular reason why other than what she might call a gut feeling. While she walked, she kept scanning the open grassland for any familiar figures.
A dull thud made its way to her alert ears, and she snapped her head back to the painted stallion just as he was apologizing to whomever he had run into. She paused and studied the scene. The mare he’d run into was about her height, and also blanketed with white across her rump. This, coupled with her rich deep brown coat and legs dipped in white, set her heart racing. She froze. Eve had nothing but the fuzziest memories of her infancy, but she’d had the appearances of her mother and sister drilled into her mind after they’d gone. In the first tender years of her life, she would recite them over and over again to herself, lest she forget. Her youth had not been as marred as Iris’s perhaps, but they both had their own traumas. They had both been ripped from a parent too soon; each had suffered the loss of the other.
Tears welled once more in her eyes as she stood, staring at who she believed could very well be her sister. A shiver that had nothing to do with the chill in the air ran from her poll to her tail. Tentatively, she stepped toward the pair, her attention focused only on the blanketed brown mare for the moment. “Iris?” Her voice was barely above a whisper. How many years had she believed her mother and sister dead? She struggled not to get her hopes up as she awaited the mare’s reaction with bated breath.