Siobhan grazes, restless under the cool watchful gaze of the moon. Rarely is she restless, but much lingers on her mind these days. In truth, she knows what it is that keeps her awake long after her small family has fallen asleep, but the thought brings her as much elation as it does sadness.

Ailill sleeps with the trio of girls, his golden figure whitewashed in the pale moonlight and her gaze rests on him heavily. He was a good father figure to her daughters, always there to shower them with love without ever letting them forget who they were or where they came from. In truth, a part of her was angry that she had allowed him to mean so much to her, that she was betraying Bjorn by loving another.

But how did you betray someone who wasn't coming back?

Her gaze drifted to Roisin, the girl's growing figure sprawled like an uncouth sack of potatoes, secure in the knowledge that she was well protected. As her speckled daughter's body grew, so did her confidence and it was often Ro that led the girls into some mischief or another. It was her willful spirit that had made their last fight so fierce and remained the reason that filly was still refusing to speak to her mother. As much as Siobhan wanted, desperately, to believe that Sigurdr and Bjorn were back, she couldn't allow herself to hope.

Because with hope came the pain. If it was true, that her once lover and all-but adopted son were back, that begged the question of why they had stayed so far away. If he was back, and he loved her as he had once told her that he did, why had he not come for her?

Siobhan could maybe learn to accept if he was tired of her, that maybe she had not been the queen that he wanted or the lover that fulfilled him as much as Nyimara, but she would not tolerate his abandonment of Roisin. She had deserved a father figure that would be there in her youth, that would cuddle and spoil and coddle her. One that would tell her stories of their childhood and their gods. One that could kiss her booboos when Sio couldn't. One that would show her where the parrots roosted and where the sweetest fruits grew.

And she'd had that, but it had not been Bjorn.

She did not regret her coupling with the golden stallion, or the lack of appetite that told her that it had taken, as it had with Roisin and Laoise before her. But it made her sad in a wistful sort of way that she lacked the words to explain. Like the closing of a chapter that had ended far too soon.

When his call had echoed across the land, her heart followed it before her mind comprehended the source. In truth, as the sound faded from the still air, she thought maybe that she had hallucinated or dreamed that he had come back for her, for it would not be the first time. Usually, when such bittersweet nightmares gripped her she had found that the only way to soothe the ache in her chest was to look for him again, and again, and again, until the repetitiveness of her search led her to numb slumber.

On pale hooves that had traced this self-same path too many times to mention, Siobhan descended to the beach of the Ridge. Her gaze passed listlessly over the dark forest edge before trailing to the ocean side, where it jittered to a stop.

A gasp of surprise barely made it from her before she was rushing towards him, feet scrambling to find purchase in the sand. She does not have time to consider the conflict in her heart, or the pain she will cause herself later by not hesitating now. Siobhan can only think of wrapping the grullo stallion against her, in pressing her affection to every part of his body that she can touch.

"Bjorn..." She says as she slows to avoid crashing into him. She does not stop to retain a polite distance. Does not hesitate to press herself against him, burying her pale muzzle in the thick tresses of his dark mane, even as sobs wrack her body and leave her shuddering at his side. He is a dream to her, the sweetest kind that leave her with some sort of a happy ending. Such dreams have been so rare as of late, nearly non-existent unlike when he had first been gone.

"I've missed you," she croaks against his body before burying her muzzle again to draw deeply of his scent. But it is wrong. All of it is wrong.

Her body tenses as she sorts out the various scents that litter his coat. He does not smell of the Ridge, of home, as he always had in her dreams. He smells of a foreign pine-scented land, of mares that she does not know, of little Sigurdur... and of Nyimara. The queen who had never considered Siobhan worthy, the one who had abandoned the remainders of the herd as surely as Bjorn had. The one who would rather flounce off to the Crossing in search of someone else to tease rather than doing the hard thing and staying behind to wait for Bjorn. Stiffly she steps back from him, her gaze wary as the realization that this Bjorn is no night terror come to tear her heart in two. It is the real Bjorn, and she might wake in the morning with no heart left.

"Where have you been?" She asks softly, shock leeching the warmth from the words until they might as well be offered to a stranger. Accusation grows in her and her paralyzed limbs tremble with the fury that blooms in her. "Where. Have. You. Been. Bjorn?"

The words are spat from lips that remain hard pressed together as if in defiance of the tears that trickle down her cheeks.