She had his eyes; her warrior child. There is a permanent sneer across the dark lips of the brooding mare with emotionless eyes as the rake over the flesh of Varda who naps undisturbed in the grass at her mother’s hooves, as if the mare cared enough to continue to protect her even when she is not old enough to not need her. Yet there is a small part of Dara that kept her close, a possessive side of her that was smug for keeping something so precious away from her beast. How she managed it for all the seasons was beyond her knowledge, but she and Tyr played their game well against each other. Thus far, she was winning.
He was coming though, this she knew. There was a stillness to the cold air that whips around her, scattering the orange and red hues of fall all around her as the breeze shakes the tree that has given them shelter ever since moving them back to the meadow. It carried the various scents of the other lost souls here in this barren land, many having found a place to shelter once the weather turned nasty, and it would indeed if last winter was any indication. “Child,” she reaches down to the long limbs belonging to the girl, teeth nipping at flesh without a care to be careful but all Dara got back was a grunt and a change of position. Irritation floods through her, digging at the dirt with her hooves and launching at the filly again to set her straight but then he floods her every sense and she is suddenly choking on the familiarity of his scent, both in shock from being found out now of all times and not being ready to face the wrath he was surely going to bare down on her alone.
Dara stumbles back away from their child, whose eyes flutter ever so slightly and reveal those eyes of his to her to further drive the stake into her rapidly beating heart. Varda resumes her sleeping, tucking her nose into the bend of her knee and ignoring the panic that is spilling from her mother currently.
The mare is wracked with grief, but along with that is the familiar anger she often felt when it came to her favorite toy, and how at one point he’d been under her instead of the other way around. Grasping at this last attempt to stand strong she pulls herself together and launches into the forest before his gaze can find the sleeping filly and cut off his path, seeking to use her body as both a battering ram and a living shield. He could not have what she holds so close and dear to her heart.
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