If it’d been difficult for Oswin to mind her manners and keep her bias aside when traveling to the Lagoon, the effort it took to keep doing so when the boss finally arrived was even more so. She sucked in a breath, white ears twisting back at the snarkiness in what he said. A look of distaste crossed her expression and she shifted her weight, giving her pale tale and irritated crack behind her haunches.

An instant judgement, Oswin lumped him in with the rest of the stallions she’d always loathed to cross paths within the Lagoon. True, there were some decent inhabitants here who only fell in because they had no interest or use for herd life on the islands, but the pompous, egotistical male-brained fools had always thrived here. She had to imagine they often chose one like them to lead them all. Why else would these men of seeming chaos listen to one stallion above all the others?

Though Rade was older and she’d noted his limp on arrival, the attitude in his voice told Oswin all she felt she needed to know.

She might’ve rolled her eyes and told him she wasn’t here to come after him for what had happened in his fight with Róisín. Though she was young, Róisín was headstrong, a fellow sister, and a mare that sought a future in leadership at the Peak. She could speak for herself and didn’t need Oswin to do it for her.

Again, that name. Cullen.

Would things have been any different if she wouldn’t have left? If she would have continued to bully Cullen as he started to rise as the new Lagoon boss, would she have been able to stop him before it got too far? Or was it foolish arrogance herself to think she had the power alone to stop and change it all?

Thinking of Cullen reminded her what had been said of this stallion, Rade. It was the only thing that helped her bite her tongue and kept her from saying something she’d regret. The tense atmosphere was only rising between the three. Oswin glanced toward the shadows, wondering if a mare’s cry would have drawn any other of the mud-caked bachelors forward, but when the darkness remained still she returned her attention to Rade.

Róisín spoke, and Oswin sensed the control in her tone that only somewhat wavered. Her blue eyes met the young mare’s multi-colored ones for a moment as she mentioned the recent Peak discussion, and then she looked back at Rade.

“How is the Peak similar to the Lagoon?” Oswin asked, and surprisingly there was no irritation in her voice when she did. She knew what he’d likely say, the same thing the sisters had discussed themselves of kidnapping unwilling captives to force their will. She had agreed with Róisín once the young mare had pointed out her own past actions and how they were wrong to have done. But, Oswin wanted to hear Rade explain himself. Listen to his thought process. She wanted to know this stallion, the one that now led the bachelors, and see how deep his Vulcan-bias ran. Was it too late to be undone?

Was her bias against the Lagoon already cemented in as well?

oswin
this is as brave as I know how to be.
I know it’s gonna hurt you, but please… be a little proud of me.