As soon as the words leave her mouth she can see she has spoken too harshly. Hurt flickers over his face, followed by something harder, and she shakes her head, stepping back. She doesn’t know of Jabari’s history with this place, nor his struggles with Rougaru, not even much of the war from days gone by; all her weary senses had picked up on was the coldness with which Vanya had been so easily dismissed, cast aside as nothing more than a liability. If the seal brown is a risk, then so is she, for she, too, has taken Rougaru willingly upon her back, though it remains yet to be determined if the child is his. She had been forced here, true, but despite her general moodiness, she yielded easily and often to the whims of the silver bay ruler. It was a choice borne of survival, of needing to keep herself - and the life she carries, so tender, so fragile - safe from harm. What choices, she wonders, was Vanya forced to make?

Jabari might understand parts of a mare’s feelings in that circumstance, if he cared to, but he’d never get the whole picture.

Titania is mulling over this, trying best to figure out how to salvage the situation, when he, too, turns from her. She shakes her head again, this time stepping forward, as if to follow him; “Jabari, wait -” she calls, her voice pitching up in urgency, but it’s too late. Just as Vanya moments before, the chagrined man has left her. Alone again, she thinks, sighing softly. Hadn’t she wanted this?

Suddenly, the clearing feels entirely too empty for comfort.

Titania glances first at the ground, champing her teeth, then back at her pregnant stomach, and finally up, through the shifting leaves of the canopy. Blue sky peeks through, bright in spite of everything. “See you tonight, my sky-and-stars,” she whispers, hanging onto the one thing in this horrible, horrible land that brings her some small measure of happiness. She turns, picking quietly back through the undergrowth, and blinks back the sharp sting of tears.