Had you asked Roisin on the swim to the Lagoon if she would ever be unhappy that a bachelor stallion left her alone, she would have laughed in your face. And yet here she was, torn between wanting to race after the infuriating brute and take a chunk out of his rump, and a strange sense of inadequacy. How the hell did she turn out to be not good enough for a Lagoon residing, mare-stealing, brutish lump of a man?

Rebuked, the girl pulls back from the impossibly tall stallion with her entire body tight with humiliation and anger. It is rare that Roisin - of all of Siobhan's children - is rendered speechless, and yet she can find no words to hurl back at the brute as he leaves her with a cryptic warning and departs from whence he'd come. Questions chased themselves around her mind but found no answers there, only more doubt and worry. What was he going back to the Ridge for? Was he going to try and extort Faolain on her behalf? Or her momma? Oh god, Roisin realized with a sickening lurch of her stomach. Maybe this was all just an elaborate ploy to get to her momma.

The white spotted girl is halfway to plunging back into the ocean after him when movement from the corner of her eye halts any forward movement and sends her skittering sideways to face her presumed attacker. Despite the fierce look she wore, her eyes were white rimmed with near-delirious fear and she was only moments away from something - although she could not say whether it would have fleeing or fighting - when realization dawns and confusion replaces the anger.

A wordless sound of confusion escapes her in a harsh exhale as she stares dumbly at her friend, mentor, and protector, unable to comprehend his presence here of all places. She would have never brought him here in a million years. Iscariot did not fit in with the villains of the Lagoon, and she would have never voluntarily given him up to anyone else. He had been her rock and protector for over half her life now, and she wasn't sure she could handle life without his constant warmth and respect for her.

"Iscariot," she breathed against his skin in disbelief as he brushed her cheek, and after a half-second of hesitation, she rushed forward to crush herself against him as she once had as a depressed yearling. Against the familiar scent of him - salt-soaked though it was - she released a breath and began to shake as the adrenaline and fear and anxiety began to drain from her. She didn't have any words for the emotions that she felt, or the way that she felt very small, and very young standing on the shores of the Lagoon, so far from home.

"I-" She began as she pulled away, not entirely sure what she wanted to say or how to communicate how deeply grateful that she was he was here. As she stepped back, however, she realized with a sickening lurch of her stomach that he must have swam all this way entirely by himself and likely driven half mad with worry. Rivaini nor Faolain would have sent him, much less alone, which meant that his presence here was either courtesy of her mother or himself, and the latter sent her heart to fluttering.

Roi swallowed hard and then stretched to nudge his shoulder gently, suddenly bashful. "Thank you." Flicking her ears back, she cast a worried glance to the land that surrounded them. "Is Faolain okay? And the baby?" She returned her focus to him with concern, using the Ridge Queen as a welcome buffer between the emotions that fluttered uneasily in her chest.

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