Meadow

Faolain’s words seemed finally to be getting through to the silver bay, though the changes were slow. The black mare watched the blue eyes of the other lift toward her face, then continue upward, until she was looking far beyond Faolain and into the overcast sky somewhere else. She remained silent for a long time, and Faolain let her be, standing patiently and balancing the feelings of hope and dread that were not so much warring but conducting a staring contest within her, looking intently at each other across scales which hovered at equal marks. It seemed this had been a test.

The russet mare spent some time struggling with words. Still patient, Faolain let her speak, understanding despite the disjointment of the sentence that came out. "I last saw him on the shore on the other side of this island," she said. "Near the Common, but north. It was almost a day ago."

It was Faolain’s turn to fall silent at Rivaini’s next question. She knew saying nothing would be suspicious, but she did not know exactly why she had decided to help Iscariot. Or rather, she knew why, but she knew it didn’t make sense. The truth was that she had had free time, and she had been bored, and the strange way she had emotionally mirrored Iscariot was intriguing. She was sure Rivaini would question this if she admitted to it; would Faolain have still helped had she not been bored? if she had not accidentally adopted the ivory stallion’s desperate feeling of recognition, and then disappointment? Both of those were questions Faolain truly did not have answers to. She did not know, and she did not particularly care, because she never really thought about the what-ifs. They had never mattered to her. The present was fact, and nothing else was relevant because you could not go back in time and change the past to alter the present. You could only alter the present by moving forward. Getting stuck on what-ifs was unproductive.

Finally the black mare gave a quiet sigh. It was not in her nature to be dishonest, but she feared the truth would cause problems, as it often did. Unfortunately (or fortunately) it was her only option. "Do you really want to know?" she asked, though that was a useless question, and she carried on regardless of Rivaini’s answer. No, she probably did not want to know, but the mare was not stupid. She had asked, and she would not have asked if she did not HAVE to know. "I fear I do not have an answer to your question that will be satisfactory. The truth is that I had nothing else to do. When I first ran into Iscariot, I think he thought I was you at first. It was only a very brief second, but it caused me to wonder if I had known him before, though I’m sure now I had never met him. But that moment was interesting to me, and the distress he felt when I turned out to be a stranger was immense." I did not want him to feel that way, she thought, but kept it to herself, as the thought made no sense to her and seemed irrelevant. "Simply put, I helped him because I had the means to do so. Time, energy, and knowledge of the beach because I had washed up nearly right where you did, only a few days before." She stopped. She knew this was an odd answer. She knew her motivations and actions were unusual, sometimes in a good way, often not, and normally she would not have cared to influence the opinions of another in regards to herself. But if Rivaini did not trust her, or thought her motivations were immoral, it might hinder the silver bay’s reunion with Iscariot.

Faolain could not force Rivaini to trust her. She could not sugar coat or patch up her feeble answer of why; she could only lay out the truth and hope for the best. She did not answer the second part of Rivaini’s question because it confused her to think about even more than the first part or the what-ifs.

Though she was anxious to return to the shore, Faolain waited for Rivaini’s response.

FAOLAIN