Her heart yearns for the comfort that her big brother has always provided her. It craves the sense of safety she's always found beneath his watchful presence, and for the light-heartenedness he is always able to bring back to her. Desperately she wishes that things could go back to the way they were when they were small, when their greatest concerns were who would make it to the waterfall first.

Now everything was so big, and so sad, and so heavy that she felt smaller than she ever had.

What purpose or use did her life have? She wasn't strong enough to keep her mom safe, nor had she been a good enough daughter to keep Bjorn here. She wasn't pretty enough for Iscariot, or brave like Ailill. She was just here, just existing, and she hated it.

Tension radiates from the yearling as she stares her brother down, desperately wishing that he would know nothing about Siobhan. It wouldn't make sense, considering he was always with Bjorn, but it would be easier to accept. If Sigurdr had known of Siobhan's capture, and of who had done it, and done nothing, could she forgive him? Even if the one doing the capturing was his own mother, wouldn't he understand that she didn't want to leave? Did he know of the long months she'd spent lying awake at night, wishing she could just talk to her mom? Did he know that Siobhan refused to speak of what had happened there? Roisin could see that it haunted her still. It was in the way her gaze go far off and she turned quiet. The way she was less often baited into play, even by the twins, and the way she relied on Ailill's support more than ever.

What worried her even more, was that he would know of what was happening now.

They had tried to shield her from it, and Roisin knew she wasn't supposed to know. Not that Aranck had tried to challenge for her and Akadi. Nor that if Siobhan would not give that, that he wanted her next foal. That he wanted to rape her. And that when Siobhan had emerged victorious from that heart-sinking challenge, Nyimara had risen from the ashes again to force Siobhan back to the Arch to make his twisted dreams come true.

Roisin wasn't supposed to know. But she did. She did and she didn't know what to do with the information. You couldn't just forget that your mom had been raped. Or would be. And there was nothing she could do about it.

The filly shivered when he answered, his hesitance convincing her unfairly of his blame and fury rose dangerously quickly in her chest. "You do, don't you!" It's not fair for her to assume his position in all of this, nor has she even stopped to consider what it must be like for him to be torn three ways, but Roisin has bottled her grief and her rage and she cannot hold it in, not anymore. "Did you cheer your mom on when she stole her the first time? What about the second?" One slender, white-dipped foreleg stabs at the earth as she stalks a single step forward.

"Are you and daddy living with that disgusting stallion now? You-He," she blubbers, the words tangling in her throat as the tears bud from her lids. She cannot imagine that Bjorn would not follow Nyimara wherever her poison led. After all, family was supposed to stick together. "Daddy couldn't just let her be happy, could he?"

The pain of rejection is strong, both from and for her father and she struggles to handle it all. "Why, Sig? Why would he let him say that to momma? To do that to her?"

It is the first time that Roisin has talked about it. Up until now, it has been a leaden weight that has sat on her heart, threatening to drown her if she ever dropped her vigilance. And the tears, now unleashed, pour down her cheeks as her breathing devolves into ragged hiccups.

FILLY | MUTT | 14.3 HANDS WFG | BAY DUN SABINO | THE RIDGE | BJORN x SIOBHAN | LOVEINSPIRED | CREDIT