Despite how awful she felt, Tavas' words echoed in her mind.
"You're not a prisoner here... Make your peace mom, before it's too late."
The idea was naive and dangerous. But the more the steely mare toiled around the barren Inlet, her body still reeling as she slowly recovered from the birth that nearly killed her, Vita Nova couldn't get it out of her mind. The stallions she loved the most - her chosen King and her brother - were out to kill one another. Meanwhile she was stuck in the Inlet, too weak to wander at the higher elevations, let alone a full swim to another island. But knowing what was at stake, she couldn't let go of this dreaded anxiety that told her to go. Go now.
"I'll regret it for the rest of my life if I don't try." She said to Tavas one morning. Her adult daughter smiled back at her with determination in her eyes. "Then let's go right now." Vita Nova spent the next day smoothing out the details. Neon would keep watch over Brunhild. She drank and she ate until her stomach felt bloated, hoping that the nutrition and hydration would make the travel ahead of her just a hair easier. The next morning she stood uneasily in the shallow waters, the cold surf lapping at her ankles with Tavas at her side. "You can do this, mom. I'm right here with you." Vita Nova bobbed her head in acknowledgement, too afraid to cast her blue-eyed gaze to the water at her hooves. She didn't want to see her reflection, which would reveal just how sick and rail-thin she really was. Instead she sucked in a deep breath, and kept walking deeper into the cold sea until her legs were forced to kick out to keep her head above water.
The ashen mare cursed her daughter, and her broken body, the entire way to Luthien. Her body screamed in pain back at her, but somehow, the Queen of the Inlet managed to keep her head above water. She leaned against her daughter as her shaky legs carried her onto the shoreline of the Forest. Despite the burn in her nostrils and in her lungs from the seawater, she could smell the many scents of intruders here. She could see their hoof prints in the damp sand, leading them deeper into the territory. By the time they breached the canopied woods, she could hear them - grunts and squeals - while battles stall raged on. "Stay close to me. You hear?" Vita Nova barked at her daughter as her heartbeat quickened in her chest.
But adrenaline kicked in. Vita Nova no longer paid her weary limbs and weak state no mind. Her senses were sharp. Her grey nostrils flared to test the air continuously, searching it for the familiar scents of Warsaw or Shamwari. The mother-daughter duo would pause to hide in the brush when the sound of thundering of hoof steps came their way. Then they would scamper on, quickly and as quietly as they could - through the early dawn hour.
Vita Nova caught whiff of Warsaw first - but his trail was everywhere. It crossed back and forth, making it impossible to determine his current path. But then she caught Shamwari in the wind. Her steely ears pricked forward and Tavas nickered reassuringly to her mother. Then they followed it.
Vita Nova veered cautiously in front of Tavas' path, halting their movement, as she caught sight of red and white legs thrashing in between the tree branches up ahead. Her heart lurched into her throat. She'd found them. They watched in fear for several minutes, as kicks and bites landed on each one of them. It wasn't until she watched Shamwari kick Warsaw squarely in the gut that she emerged from the woodline, stepping out into the open and screaming at them. She nearly fell as she did so, her tired body threatening to give out, and Tavas stepped in to prop her up.
Warsaw stared back at them in horror, but Vita Nova stiffened as best she could. "Stop it." She repeated, breathlessly, the sides of her flanks huffing as she tried to fill her lungs with air. "I can't sit at home any longer knowing that one of you is going to turn up dead at the end of this." She spat, her tired blue eyes bouncing from one stallion to the next. "So here I am."
Shamwari nickered warmly to Vita Nova, shock and concern plastered across his face. He'd never seen Vita Nova in such a condition, with her hips jutting out so prominently, and so lacking in topline. She looked severely ill. As Warsaw quipped at him, he turned and bared his teeth at the stallion. "What the hell is wrong with you, that you leave her like this?" He spat back. "Nova, what happened? Good God."
The steely mare merely snorted and her jaws clenches as she raised her head higher over her withers, ignoring her brother's words. "This ends right now between you two, and not the way the you envisioned." She said shakily. "Find common ground. You've both put your families through hell over this war. Are you willing to die for it too? Are you willing to watch me die? Tavas die?"
Mare | Evaline x Valentine | Smoky Back Splash | 15 hh | © Vinyl |
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