Çiçek listens attentively to Siobhan’s stories, as she always does, but something snags in the back of her mind. The whitesplashed mare’s mention of her daughters, all three of them, sticks to her like honey, sweet and cloying, and now it’s all she can think about. Sio speaks of them so lovingly, and she doesn’t miss the deep well of affection in her expression. It reminds her of the kindness she’d seen, growing up, reflected in her own dam’s eyes. A question forms within her, even as she clucks in gentle dismissal of her friend’s failure at her supposed homecoming duties and laughs at the image of Fae, solemn and stiff, dancing in the surf.

Her ears perk at Siobhan’s last question. Çiçek chuckles, pulling her head bashfully close to herself and peering shyly up from beneath her long pale lashes. “A little,” she says, thinking with a lofty grin of the few steps she’d been taught years back. “I’m very out of practice, though… our two guardians don’t seem much for dancing.” Now that she knows Faolain has been taught, she looks forward to teasing it out of the mare the next time she sees her. Perhaps, even, she could get her to give Rivaini some lessons, as compensation for the both of them pitifully losing the race she’d proposed on the shore weeks prior.

The image of the muscular woman trying to follow the patterns of their steps, as funny as it is, holds no candle to the questions still lingering on the forefront. Çiçek lets the silence stretch for a good half-minute, staring at her companion in deep, conspicuous thought, shifting her weight a bit. This is the first time since her tryst with the whitesplashed King - and longer, still, before that - where she’s felt nervous. Normally, the dun has no problems in social situations, preferring to keep things out and in the open; she knows light typically cleanses, and she is all too happy to provide that light for those who might have problems seeking it out... but something about the nature of her inquiry feels invasive, somehow, even as Siobhan freely shares the details of her life with her growing family. If she doesn’t get her thoughts out of her head, she knows, she won’t be able to relax. Better, then, to just go for it. Çiçek clears her throat. “Siobhan…” her voice, usually self-assured, holds notes of trepidation, but still she presses on, finishing what she started.

“You’ve carried foals before… how - how did you know?” Her eyes flick from the mare’s kind face to the shifting canopy above, drifting back down. “I’m sorry - my mother remains on the mainland, and I can’t ask her anymore,” she explains, smiling sheepishly. “Please don’t tell the others, but…” How can she explain it?

“I had a… hm.” Çiçek searches for the right word, sifting through her choices carefully. “A *visitor,* shall we say, at the end of the past season,” she says, mirth at the hidden meaning there creeping into her tone. “But I can’t tell if what I’m feeling is the natural fade of my cycle or something else.” Her ears flick sideways, gauging how her request has landed. “My mother told me, but it’s been so long since, and you seem experienced…” She laughs at the silliness of the situation, feeling like a yearling all over again, asking the grown-ups about the birds and the bees. “Something tells me, too, that Faolain and Rivaini would know about as much about this as they do about Ailill’s dances.” And anyway, though Çiçek can sense the friendship budding between them, there aren’t layers of flirtation - and the consequences of her bargaining, looming closer by the day - to complicate matters. Sio is perhaps the best and only one to ask about this, if she’s open to it.