PERSEPHONE

Persephone could feel her heart almost miss a beat when Talya turned to her and smiled. She remembered her. A smile cracked Persephone’s expression of surprise, warmth seeping across her face at that old silly nickname. Suddenly, she felt transported back in time by several years.

Kestrel Talya said then. Persephone could only assume that this was the name of the foal beside her. She smiled at the colt, lowering her head in greeting. Her dark eyes flicked back towards Talya, then, at her quiet admission.

I felt safest here. Persephone felt a strange combination of pity and pride ripple through her. She was glad that Talya remembered her home as a place of safety and refuge, and that she had the sense to come here when she felt vulnerable, but the implication that she was not safe elsewhere worried her greatly.

Persephone took a few slow steps forward, drawing closer to Talya and her son as the girl began to explain. Not that her explanation cleared too much up – she had not grown out of her own, curious perception of the world – but Persephone could surmise the general idea. She nodded in understanding.

“You know you will always be welcome here,” she replied, choosing to address the question of who the Good Witch was later.

Persephone hovered as Talya rose carefully to her feet. Once she was up, Persephone offered her muzzle carefully to the girl in greeting, before they both turned their attention to Kestrel as he began those first wobbly attempts to stand by himself.

“He is,” Persephone agreed with a smile, remembering fondly watching both of her own children doing the same in those precious, vulnerable moments after birth. “He’s beautiful.”

She gave a soft, satisfied smile watching him, before probing Talya gently and carefully.

“You’ll be a good mother, Talya. What about the father, is he around?”

all of your demons will wither away

mixed, bay varnish roan, 14.3hh