VaLkA

mare / four / chestnut pangare / yakut / 13.0 hh

The shaggy mare was silent throughout the entirety of Solomon’s response, hearing the faint tone of grief in his voice - and something more. It was evident that regardless of the cause, the Cove’s ruler took responsibility for the mare’s death - that he felt, perhaps, the same hollow ache of failure that Valka felt every time she considered Goose’s capture. And though she offered neither word nor gesture of comfort to the tall golden creature, the Yakut’s harsh glare had softened, something that might have been sympathy briefly replacing the distrust that had lingered there. It was clear that Solomon could not be as easily characterized as darkness or light. There was some good in him, along with the bad that she had witnessed on the Crossing. Like Valka, he truly cared for the well-being of those who lived within his kingdom.

Of course, this truth couldn’t make her forget what she had seen. Nor could it erase the negative feelings that she still harbored for him. All it could do was make everything more of a jumbled-up and confusing mess - a tangle of emotional threads so thoroughly snarled that Valka ceased trying to make sense of it and cast it away in frustration. She couldn’t know Solomon’s own thoughts - that his own feelings about her were just as ambiguous. That he believed Bjorn to be just as much of a monster, if not more. And even if she had, none of it would have mattered - the skjaldmær might still be adjusting to her independence, but she would no longer believe anything that she had not witnessed herself.

To let another creature decide what version of the truth you believed was to accept a different type of shackles - the sort that had led her to blindly fight in her people’s war for the first bloody years of her existence.

As if his thoughts had travelled a similar path to her own, Solomon revealed that the mare who had been lost was the one she’d once sought to free. It was fortunate that Valka had been keeping an iron grip on her rigid body since the moment the stallion had first approached; the rush of anger she felt at that revelation might have otherwise pulled them into yet another physical conflict. But the brief flicker of warmth - of something other than the sharp edges and coarse surface that formed who the small mare was - was extinguished as quickly as it had come into being. Aine. The name of a mare whom she might have saved, if she had only been faster to act in the Common. Keeping her blunt teeth firmly clenched, the Yakut did not deign to respond to what Solomon offered - to his empty reassurances of her freedom, her choice. Both had been taken from her in the moment that his teeth had raked her hide, whatever he might claim to convince himself of his innocence. For all he knew, it was fear that kept Aine at Warsaw’s side.

Even a slave who dreamed of freedom could also fear it. Had Valka been offered the choice of leaving the land of her birth, she would have never made it. It was only after she’d been forced from her home that she had felt the absence of the chains she’d worn since birth, and rejoiced in her freedom.

Solomon seemed determined to fill the cold silence that pervaded the space between them. His inquiry about Mazarine was not unexpected, but the fluffy chestnut was no more prepared to respond to it than she had been when his scent had first reached her. She had known that the champagne male’s presence here indicated his intent to reclaim the mare, just as Valka knew that she would not permit him to. But despite the cold stare that she levelled at him - and the fury that still writhed in her belly - she did not want to fight him. Not only because she was in no condition to win, but also because she still felt too conflicted about this stallion. When he had spoken Mazarine’s name, she’d felt the sting of betrayal - and in order to feel betrayed, there would first have to exist a measure of trust, no matter how small it was.

“Mazarine is safe, but not sure if happy. She is free to return to you or go to another land if she want and has not left. But...” The chestnut’s eyes bore into Solomon’s, her gaze accusatory. “Not talk. Not make friend. Act as if scared to do anything unless given command.” Despite the pain that she felt at seeing her guest so seemingly broken, this was one thing that Valka would not do. So far, she had only respected the mare’s apparent desire for space and peace . But sooner or later, she knew that they would need to speak, if only so Mazarine could communicate what she desired of the future. And whatever that desire was - be it returning to Solomon, remaining in the Bay, or perhaps even leaving the island entirely - the skjaldmær would not only honor it, but offer what aid she could to make it happen.