Çiçek doesn’t have to have seen what happened to make an educated guess. She heard, same as everyone, the squeals in the distance, saw the obvious signs of a scuffle in the sand. She smelled a mare, foreign and ringed with the fragrance of pines that only comes with horses from Tinuvel, and the jungle had grown quiet as the red mare Siobhan’s children ceased their frolicking to mourn. Çiçek hasn’t truly known her long, but still she worries for her, far-flung and made to swim so far North in the depths of winter, pregnant with a child and leaving behind the rest. She thinks of her dam, tearful and reluctant, on the shores of the Inlet, leaving her older brother Larkspur with her granddam in order to find Șahin and bring the three of them together. Siobhan, like Azaleya so many years ago, was forced to make a hard choice, one that took into consideration the lives of her loved ones, and while Çiçek doesn’t envy that choice, she can understand why the whitesplashed mare has made it. The sea surrounding the frigid North was dangerous at this time of year for even a healthy, full-grown horse, let alone a pack of foals and yearlings, and who knew what perils awaited at the end of her journey? Better to go alone, to risk herself over all of the lives of her loved ones for the selfish reason of wanting them around to make her imprisonment more tolerable.

Çiçek walks, now, along the coast, the babe within her own womb having stirred her awake early. She watches the waves, thinking, as she often does lately, of the future. Her stomach still hasn’t grown much, having conceived so late in the season, and for all intents and purposes she could look like she’d just been eating too much grass. It isn’t that she would hide her pregnancy, not from her friends and guardians, but the palomino worries it’ll bring up the kinds of questions she doesn’t have an answer for yet. Siobhan’s departure has thrown a wrench into her plans. How, exactly, is she supposed to tell Faolain and Rivaini that yet another of their herd is leaving, temporarily or not? How can she honor her deal with Solomon without looking like she, too, is betraying their trust?

Çiçek doesn’t know. This, and the general pall that has fallen over the Ridge in Sio’s absence, tempers her steps as she comes across Faolain’s dark form, standing fetlock-deep in the waves. It is, oddly enough, more quiet out here than in the forest itself, what with the overabundance of life that comes in tropical winters, but still she whickers softly as she approaches, lest the sound of the tide and the ringing of the black mare’s thoughts hide the sound of her striped hooves on the sand. “Küçük gölge,””Little shadow,” she murmurs in greeting, pressing her pink lips to Faolain’s withers.

For a few minutes, Çiçek simply stands alongside her, pale spotted barrel rising and falling in rhythm against the other’s. Together they watch the sun climb groggily over the horizon, washing the shore in pale pastels. Slowly, her warm amber gaze turns from the sea, kind eyes settling on her friend. “Do your thoughts keep you from sleep this morning, too?” It is more, for her, than the racing of her mind that brings her to this point, but she knows at least that part isn’t true for Faolain - and anyway, news of her pregnancy can wait. All of that can wait, for now, as she settles comfortably in the company of her little shadow, offering a moment of peace and her shoulder to lean on.