róisín

It would be easy to brush away the aged golden stallion as nothing more than a fool with delusions of grandeur. In truth, a part of Roisin had already begun to do so no matter how hard she was trying to be objective and fair. For all the claims that he was making of being an agent of change and of bringing in an era of peace, nothing had changed outwardly for the herds of the islands as far as Roisin could see.

The Lagoon still stole mares and children. They still ruined families. They still kept prisoners.

If Rade wanted to change the Lagoon's image, he would actually need to do the work and not just spout pretty words from a hillock in the swamp. Even if he had begun the work - work that Roisin could not have seen (being neither omnipresent nor the sort to interview every stranger she happened across) - it would take more than a few baby steps to undo the sort of damage that the Lagoon had wrought upon the islands, especially if the atrocities had not actually stopped happening. If someone abused you for the entirety of your childhood, you didn't immediately forgive them because they said sorry once. Doing so was liable to get yourself hurt again.

And if she and Oswin accepted this apology now? It wasn't just them they were putting at risk of being hurt again.

As much as Roisin wanted to believe that Rade was attempting to usher in a new era of peace, she had not yet seen the ripple effects. From her point of view, the Lagoon was operating as it always had. It had prisoners. It had children, some of whom were almost certainly unwanted. It had members issuing challenges for mares that did not belong to them. Outwardly, very little had changed.

There was a possibility that the changes were internal. That Rade wasn't lying. But it was also just as possible that he was. Just as it was possible that Rade believed every word that was being said while the Lagoon at large scoffed and muttered and chuckled behind his back while resuming business as usual without a strong figurehead to reign them in. As much as the golden stallion might huff and pout and roll his eyes like a child who wasn't getting his way, the decision to extend a hand of trust to the wolf that had bitten you time and time and time again was neither easy nor simple.

It was dangerous.

Thankfully, Oswin not only seemed to echo Roisin's thoughts, but possessed the maturity and wherewithal to craft their doubts into words that made sense, rather than petulant and rash behavior. Were it up to Roisin, she would have taken this small victory for what it was (a victory was a victory, after all), and returned to the Peak with Shenzi to discuss it with her sisters. They had come here to hear him out, and so they had, but there had not been a moment of this conversation that had not left her angry and hurting and doubting. Being back in this fetid swamp brought back those old feelings of helplessness and she wished, not for the first time, that she was home in the Peak at Iscariot's side.

But she had messed that up with her rashness too.

And so the girl lapsed into tense and wary silence as Oswin soldiered on, Roi's black-tipped ears held loosely back in a show of her apprehension. Much of Rade's answer was along the lines that she had expected, although she found it interesting that he was claiming to have released other prisoners as well. What had made them worthy of his pity, and not Shenzi? Was it just his spite against Nyimara that kept a mare and her child imprisoned in the Lagoon?

The realization that her father would have likely made that same hard decision quieted the snarl forming on her lips, and kept her still as the withered husk of a stallion all but dismissed them. Stubbornness kept her own lips from falling into an answering sneer at his rudeness, but her tail switched across her haunches in agitation. The sheer gall that he had to ask for their forgiveness while the men under his command had yet to stop their incendiary behavior was infuriating, but she bit her tongue. When he finally began to walk away from them, her head raised in indignation, but it wasn't until he had taken a few steps forward that the impulsive girl follows after him.

She isn't foolish enough to come within range of his hind hooves, but the disrespect is almost more than she can bear. "You're implying that we - that the Peak made them monsters." Despite the incendiary verbiage, her tone is surprisingly measured. Hadn't she had this exact same conversation with Oswin and Bane in the mountains? That maybe - just maybe - the Peak were not blameless angels in this dance? "Maybe you aren't wrong," she offers with a grim swallow, her nostrils flaring.

"But maybe you haven't noticed that the Peak is also going through changes." She said again, taking another halting step further into the Lagoon after his retreating figure. "Few of the old members remain, and those that do - like Oswin," she says, her gaze glancing to the golden mare for an indication whether she was still in agreement, "are trying to make a future that's better for both of us. For the whole islands." She paused for a moment, tampering down the accusations that rose to mind. How much she wanted to point out that his half-truths and sneers and rude dismissals did not inspire the kind of trust it would take for such a momentous change to take place. "If what you say isn't a half-truth, Rade, then it sounds like you are too."

She swallowed and paused her slow forward progress, her body tense with the passion of her words. "But the truth is I don't trust you, Rade. Not yet." Her chin lifted slightly as she offered the truth that was sticking between them all. "The Lagoon has hurt me over and over and over, and it will take more than the apologies of one man to fix it." Especially one who sat aside and did nothing to fix it while I suffered, she thinks but does not say, as if aware that her words were already harsh enough.

"I'm… I'm willing to change, because I want the world to be better. I don't want my siblings growing up fearing the Lagoon or the Peak." And she didn't. The thought of a future where her ever-growing number of siblings could grow up safe from harm by either organization drove her. She didn't know if it was possible, if such a thing could even become a reality, but she had to try for the sake of Naenia, Saoirse, Aoife, Hades, Finch, and all of the others that had and would come after. They deserved a better future.

"But the Peak cannot be the only ones working for the good of the Islands. And more importantly, it can't just be the three of us doing it either... It has to be our whole herds, or the bad eggs will undo every good thing that we do." They could free every prisoner their brothers and sisters took, but that would not undo the fact that they had been taken in the first place. "I will commit to steering our sisters in that direction, with Oswin's help. Can you commit to you and the Lagoon doing the same?"

mare . 4 . mutt . dun sabino . 14.3 hh . björn x siobhan . love

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