Hate had consumed her. Its fiery tongue lapped at the edges of her conscious mind in every waking moment, promising violent retribution anytime some dared to come near her. In the wake of her escape attempt, she had simply stopped caring. No longer did she hide in the shadows of the Lagoon as she had for years, trying to avoid the lascivious stares of the bachelors. Now, she wandered freely, with ears that remained perpetually pinned and eyes that belied how dead she felt inside.

The only souls that she actively avoided now were the three men that meant everything to her.

Fiero and Khajiit were both met with gaping jaws and hooves that struck out until either they left or she wore herself into exhaustion. And Fuego she simply couldn't bear to face. Not after she'd attempted to leave him behind too in a desperate bid for her freedom.

She was no better than his father now, and Switch could not bear to face him in her shame.

The lithe mare napped beneath a tree heavily laden with Spanish moss, which draped down enough to offer a thin curtain of solitude. Her body had grown gaunt in the intervening months, her apathy and lack of appetite drawing the skin tight against her body as if incapable of hiding the growing bulge in her stomach. She still ate for the sake of the bebe, but it became harder and harder each day to find the will to do so. What good would it do? She would only be delivering a child into the same prison from which she could not escape; Consigning the child to a life with a single parent, and one who was incapable of truly protecting her.

Fiero's offer to rehome her had not only highlighted his lack of love for her, but also how expendable she truly was. She was nothing more than a commodity to be bought and sold and brokered.

Her child shifted uncomfortably and Switch grimaced and repositioned, her tail flicking irritably across her hocks, already half-woken from her nap. More often than not, she wished that she could simply sleep each day away until her bebe came, if only to have something else to focus on other than her volatile mood. As it was, she could no more press fast forward than she could rewind back to the day that Fiero had left her here and change the path her life had taken. More than once it had occurred to her that she could have lived in a herd, one that might serve as protection, real protection for Fuego. With a father figure that would have cared about him. That would have raised him.

It might have lacked the love that she still (regrettably) felt for her amor, but it at least would have been safe. And most importantly none of this would have happened.

She isn't sure what tips her off to the fact that she has company - whether its the feeling of eyes on her skin or an errant air current, but her ears pin beneath the tangled mess of her mane and she squeezes her eyes further shut in irritation. "JoderGoddamnit," she mutters. "What do you want?"

mare // paso fino // black // 14.3hh // lagoon // loveinspired