I DON'T WORRY,
WORRYING DON'T AGREE
THINGS THAT BOTHER YOU, NEVER BOTHER ME!

Kestrel, new to life, to breathing, to thinking, to feeling, to learning, could not speak back to Talya like she’d spoken to him. He made little weird grunts, trying to figure out how to work his vocal chords but struggling. Talya didn’t care, she smiled wide and happy, little pale ears perked forward and eyes filled with wonder. He was perfect.

The first horse she wished he could meet was Frey.

But she was supposed to have forgotten Frey.

Talya’s ears flicked and she snorted. The loud noise so close to Kestrel made the dark gold colt jerk and grunt with surprise, his dark brown eyes regarding her with offense. How dare his own mother scare him!

“Talya?”

That voice… she knew that voice. It was different, but the same. Familiar, but new. Talya’s pale lashes fluttered as she blinked and turned her head slowly, exhaustion still deep in her bones from the birth. Her blue eyes snapped to the figure who emerged from the Forest she ruled, and a bright, wide, happy smile broke out across Talya’s mouth.

“Hi Forest Goddess…” She said, weakly. Almost shyly.

“What are you doing here?”

Talya glanced at Kestrel. Kestrel looked at Talya.

“Kestrel.” She said, because it was easier to point out the obvious than it was to answer that question. The Forest Goddess had every right to know everything. From what had happened when Talya was last in these forests up to the very point she had come to be here now, lying in the sun-dappled clearing with her little roan colt. Unfortunately, knowing the pale mare, most of those tales were going to go untold as she forcibly pushed them from her mind. Talya blinked and looked back at the Forest Goddess. She admitted something in a soft, quiet voice. “I felt… safest here.”

That much was true. This place was last a horrible memory for her, where Mamapapa took Sabra’s life, but now it was something beautiful. New life had come into it, and it was something that Talya just… understood. This was so much more natural than when she’d gotten pregnant the first time.

“I was on Atlantis in the Harbor, but the Good Witch left and someone new came in and it was so sticky and gross there, I just wanted Luthien.”

She wanted one of the few places she’d felt the safest and most loved. Talya’s blue eyes warmed on the Forest Goddess. Time may have passed, but she felt as though she’d stepped right back into yesterday. The yesterday that should have been.

Kestrel shifted uncomfortably, his instincts pushing at him to use those long, gangly legs of his to stand, though he was confused because his mother hadn’t yet. Talya glanced back at him and grimaced, already feeling the aches and sore pains shooting up and down her back legs. Her white tail was stained red with blood from Kestrel’s birth. Carefully rocking her weight, the pale paint mare struggled up to her legs, giving her tired body a shake before she turned her neck to look back down at her child.

“He’s perfect, isn’t he?” She asked the Forest Goddess as he started to struggle to stand. Talya didn’t need to ask, she already knew he was.