Falls

As winter slowly released its frigid grasp on the land, the spotted siblings fell into a familiar pattern. Years seemed to fall from the pair as they re-established their old friendship, and it was almost possible for Iris to pretend as if the interval of their separation had never occurred at all. From the way the two brown mares frisked about the Crossing, they might have been fillies again, up to the very same antics that had once left Lilika rolling her dark eyes in exasperation. And yet while it was possible for their burdens to be set aside and the past to be revisited, both knew that these stolen days could not last forever. No matter how hard one might try, the hands of time could not truly be turned back.

Following the unspoken cues she had read from her sister, Iris had made no mention of the other’s obviously-gravid condition. Like Eve, she was simply content to live in the moment, and enjoy their reunion for as long as their circumstances permitted it to last. But it did concern her that the roan mare said nothing at all about her pregnancy - no mention of the stallion who had sired the foal, no declaration of where she intended to give birth. It was almost as if Eve was determined to ignore the situation in the hopes that it might go away. And while Iris should have been grateful to her sister for providing Lily the grandfoals that she was unlikely to ever bear, all that she felt was fear for the spotted roan. Both her mother and sire had described the difficulties that Lilika had gone through in birthing her, and the seal-brown mare had no experience rearing children of her own that she might be able to step in and help if there were any...complications.

The last pockets of snow had evaporated when Eve sidled up to her, requesting her sibling’s attention with a gentle touch. Iris saw some trepidation in the depths of the roan mare’s eyes, and felt a shiver of apprehension trail down her spine. With the arrival of spring, it seemed that their period of respite was at its end.

“Eve…” the older mare began, reluctance apparent even in that single syllable. “It’s not that it’s a secret or that I was worried you would think of me differently. I just didn’t want you to be… sad.” A sigh parted the dark curve of her lips as she leaned forward to touch the warm arch of her sister’s neck, a gesture that she knew would bring both comfort. Then she began to speak with barely a pause, skirting over the worst of what had happened to spare Eve the details that would only inflict unnecessary pain on both. She began with the night that the stallion had stolen them away while Eve was sleeping nearby, and progressed to the journey to the mainland that they’d been led upon. She bared her regret in giving the brute exactly what he had needed to hold their mother for so long - and then, as she finished, shared a burden that even she and Lily had never discussed. “...he had threatened to hurt me before, but this was the first time that he actually tried. And I knew then that he would never, ever let us go. So I - I killed him, Eve. I killed him.”

A complicated tangle of emotions threatened to pull the older mare apart at the seams as she pulled away from Eve. She stared at the ground instead of her sister, not entirely certain she wanted to see the horrified reaction that her words would bring. It didn’t matter to Iris whether or not the stallion had deserved his fate, or that she had only stooped to the same level of cruelty that had been employed against her and her mother. What mattered to Iris was that in that moment, she’d learned the atrocities that even she was capable of. Lilika and Gnome had always been adamant in their peaceful natures, and had sought to pass that same respect for all life along to their daughters. How could she ever face her father after what she had done?