Time; there was always time until there wasn’t. Bacardi always thought he would have more time to make up for the absence and distance that lingered between Brynja and himself. To make it more of a relationship, than a co-existence of space and children. He had never held such a strange acquaintance with a mare, but as she did not reach out either, he thought that perhaps it was the life she wanted rather than a life with the herd and him. But when things changed, Bacardi was not absent to the shift around him. The stallion went to investigate, and what he found made his heart plummet in a way he hadn’t felt before.


Bacardi was not new to death. He was not new to being left behind by those still living. But to lose someone like this, the clenching feeling in his gut and the shattering of his own heart was entirely new-found. Though her last words were not to him, but to the stranger instead, Bacardi did not interfere. He stood back, his golden eyes staring at the now prone form. The throbbing in his chest filling his ears till that was all he could hear.


Aleksi. At least she had named their son before she had left them both behind.


Finally, Bacardi was able to wrestle himself free as the red one addressed the colt. Rousing him to nurse and to survive. The stallion slowly walked closer, his actions subdued after witnessing the very thing that wetted her cheeks. “I will trust Brynja’s judgement, and you’re promise.” he said, his voice husky with his own grief though he refused to shed the tears that glistened in his eyes. “But know that I am not only a sire, but a true Father, and will be apart of my son’s life.” It was not a threat to take Aleksi away from the stranger who already showered him with affection and the warmth of love. Only a promise that Bacardi would not be absent of the child’s life, and a heads up to her stallion that he would not stay away.

five years. mutt. bay tobiano. fourteen three hands. of the bay.

"...speech"