Abandonment was a fickle thing when you willed it upon yourself. Aallotar wasn't sure what hurt her more; the realization that it was self inflicted, or that she still cared for him. Their love was a distant memory and when they had last seen each other, he'd be a vacant shell. It was strange to think of the exhuberent colt he had been when they'd met. It felt like ages ago now. In truth, it had only been a few years. But perhaps that was the interesting part of time, that though it was simple, it felt equally complex. The passage of time may have been static, but the way someone perceived it was another matter. Aallotar had grown tired. Tired of motherhood, the prospect of love, tired of her emotions. With each passing day, she realized that she'd slipped even further into the darkness that always swam in the subconscious of her mind. At night when her dark eyes would finally close, Fortis tucked nearby, she'd see him. When she'd wake up, he'd be gone again. Life would be monochrome again.
Fortis was approaching the age of one as Winter clung desperate to the air. As he aged, he became more testy of the steel grey mare's boundaries, often leaving her sight for longer than expected. Aallotar equated it to the fact that he was a colt, but deep down she wondered what she'd inherited from Verrat and their coupling. Fortis had become bold, a characteristic she wasn't sure was hers, or his grandsires. Either way, on this particular morning, he'd been especially brazen and disappeared before she'd even opened her eyes to the rising son. Startled, she heaved herself to her feet, her eyes wild and desperate as she tried to search for the colt. A snap of a twig instantly flooded her with hopefulness as she turned her head in its direction. "Fortis?" she asked hesitently.
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