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Had she made a mistake?
Pilar found herself drifting away from Atlantis, having left her only child—her impressionable, young son and his gifts—with the shaman mare Nzingha. Even though she knew this was what was best for him, Pilar could not help but feel an overwhelming sense of guilt. What kind of mother was she? So quick to dump someone she loved so dearly off on another as soon as he was weaned so she could do what? Go for a swim alone in the middle of the night?
The seal brown mare sighed heavily as her hooves touched sand once more, but it was not the familiar slope of the Thicket’s beach where she found herself. Instead, she was back on the edge of the meadow—the same place where she serendipitously met the father of her child almost exactly a year previous. She stopped in her tracks, perplexed at the path her subconscious mind had sent her down.
As handsome and fun as dancing with a partner like Tandava had been, Pilar hadn’t given him much thought since the night they had spent together. He was not Rille. He was only so appealing as his boyish charms, and at the time that was what made him so attractive to her. Truthfully she had no love for either of them—the only love she knew was true, was her love for her Zeitoun.
Pilar flicked her dark tail as the surf rushed in and traveled up the length of her narrow, white legs, considering why, despite all that had happened, she was right back here contending with these overwhelming feelings. Certainly she had felt some level of sadness that night as well, but this new melancholy ran deeper, less selfish, and more evolved. Becoming a mother had changed Pilar, but it was still too soon to tell if it was all for the better.
A shrill call, wrought with longing, broke her from her pensive stillness and her inwardly curved ears snapped toward the source. And there, not more than half a furlong down the beach stood the unmistakable form of her once-lover.
“Tandava?” She called in response, walking a few steps inland and turning to face him, her dark eyes full of surprise to also see him right back where it had all began.
pilar
all I am is meant to bleed and bloom
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