róisín

It gave Roisin no small amount of pleasure to hear Oswin backing her up, and it allowed the dun girl to keep her shoulders squared and her head raised. Had she been left to her own devices, Roi wasn't entirely certain that she could have remained as firm and bold as she wanted to be. Rade was, after all, still the adult in the scenario and no matter how old Roisin became, there would always be a part of her that was schooled to listen to her elders… if only so that she did not repeat their mistakes.

Even if the elders in question were rude a-holes that acted like children.

Roisin's teeth grit together as she clenched her jaw tightly at his insolent eyeroll, her ears sweeping back against her poll again. It had been a mistake to come here. Rade clearly did not see them on the same level, and while perhaps not as bad as the golden bastard that had come before him, was still clearly just as uninterested in righting wrongs. Despite the vulnerability that she had shared, he remained cold and impassive to it - annoyed even, if the eye rolling was any indication. As if she was somehow in the wrong for being upset about the vile things that the Lagoon had done in the short time period that she had been alive. It wasn't as if they were speaking of things decades past. These were recent, problematic occurrences… and he remained unbothered.

She had dared to allow herself a sliver of hope, and the quenching of it stung more than she cared to admit.

Had she been alone, Roisin might have cut her losses then and returned to the Peak with her pride stinging and anger flaring. But she wasn't alone, and she thanked her lucky stars that Oswin was with her again. The mare pressed Rade further, opting to drill for specifics rather than leaving it vague as Roisin had done.

Roi wasn't sure if the palomino would lie. It wouldn't make him look good, but then again, he clearly didn't care about appearances. And Roisin already knew (by simple virtue of the fact that she felt strongly that no mares chose to live amongst rapists, rather than any true proof) that the Lagoon held multiple prisoners. The truth would condemn him, but at least it would be honest.

One, he claims, and her gaze narrows in disbelief and immediate suspicion. It seemed like a careful answer. If he admitted to at least one, they could not confidently say that he was lying to their faces, while also possibly concealing the true number. How many mares had Roisin observed during her short stint here? How many of them remained captive in some way or another?

The answer couldn't be one, she refused to believe it.

Before she can formulate her disbelief into a rebuttal, Rade is speaking again, and so Roisin grits her teeth and listens as he begins to explain. She cannot hide the surprise on her face to hear Nyimara's name dragged into the conversation, and the immediate loathing that rises almost obliterates all rational thought. Nyimara was behind the majority of her family's troubles on the isles, and had been since Roisin was a very young filly. To hear her name again should not have surprised her - given that her family understood that Cullen's interest in them stemmed from some deal the silver-haired witch had made - but to have it brought out in the open before Oswin made her furious, because it made her feel vulnerable.

"So you knew?" She accused harshly, her lips curled into a sneer. If he knew all of this, then it was feasible that he was closer to the two villains than he wanted them to believe. Before he can answer, she cuts her own self off. "Of course you did." Shaking her head, she shoved her own hurt back down into her chest. "It doesn't matter." What did it matter if the whole world knew that her family was hurting and did nothing to stop it? She had known since she was a young filly that for every one horse willing to stand up against what was wrong, there would be a hundred more willing to ignore it because it wasn't them. Ultimately, it wouldn't matter what he said. His denial would be just as bad as an admission at this rate. Probing at her wounds was certainly not a fast way to try and make friends with the Peak, but the longer she spent time in his presence, the less she doubted that that had ever been his goal.

All he wanted was for the Peak to stop interfering in their plots… a fact that was now glaringly obvious to her. It wasn't about peace, or doing what was right. It wasn't about fixing the wrongs of the past or ensuring that the atrocities did not happen in the future.

It was about making things easier for the Lagoon.

It had always been about making things easier for the Lagoon.

"We'll take her," Roisin said with conviction. She had absolutely no intention of keeping the mare prisoner. If the Lagoon wanted to be obtuse and unclear about their motives, then two could play at that game. What happened to the mare once she entered the Peak was no business of the Lagoon.

Even if this mare was an associate of Nyimara's, she did not deserve to be held prisoner amongst the Lagoon. Rade had offered no crime that the mare had committed, only that she had befriended the wrong sort. And while Roisin gathered what Rade was trying to imply - that releasing this mysterious mare would strengthen Nyimara and thereby put her own family more at risk - Roisin still wanted to believe that there was some good in the world.

And if it could not be found in the Lagoon men, maybe a shred of it could be found in the women that it trampled.

Her gaze cut abruptly to Oswin, and she nodded, hoping that the palomino mare would follow her lead on this, despite her aspirations for leadership. She needed Oswin to trust her on this, because Roisin had never felt so strongly about something in her life before.

mare . 3 . mutt . dun sabino . 14.3 hh . björn x siobhan . love

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