She had not forgotten about the mysterious it her companion had referenced, but he seemed disinclined to offer more details that might afford her a better view. And distracted as she was by the memories of days spent waiting for her mother to return from whatever fresh new hell Nyimara had conjured for her, the dun girl isn't prepared for his subtle movement closer. She stiffened at his closeness, but did not pull entirely away. With the rift that still separated her from Iscariot, Róisín had grown unused to casual displays of affection, much less from creatures that could have squashed her with an errant hoof if they chose.
He made no move to get closer and so she slowly relaxed into the rest of her account, falling quiet as he offered a stranger's perspective on the matter. Driven. The explanation he'd offered was pointed enough, but it was that singular word that Róisín believed best defined Nyimara. She was driven to make Siobhan suffer, although the dun girl had never fully understood the reasoning behind it. Her mother had claimed that it had something to do with Bjorn's affection, but that made even less sense. It wasn't as if her father had ever been a monogamous man.
That line of thinking, however, had been worn thin by her constant handling and she set it down gently out of habit.
You did not deserve it, he murmured and she frowned reflexively, unable to stop the kneejerk signs of denial in favor of stilling her tongue instead. Iscariot and Faolain had said as much to her that terrible day on the mountain, and while Róisín had come to accept that stopping the abuse hadn't been her responsibility, she had not yet shaken the weight that came from feeling like the cause. Afterall, up until recently, she had been Siobhan's only child with Bjorn. The only proof of the love that her parents had shared. And it had been for Róisín, not Siobhan, that Aranck's challenge came for.
If she had gone in place of her mother, her entire family's story might have been different.
She ducked her mismatched gaze away from his, and the restless energy of denial stirred her feet into movement. The pale giant kept pace at her side and while she had moved with the intention of releasing the pressure, she found that she didn't mind his company... so long as they found another topic. She wasn't sure she could bear the inevitable platitudes that others always offered when they heard the recounting of her tale and mistook it as a request for their pity.
Thankfully, he moved agreeably onto her question and she exhaled slowly as she walked, releasing some of the disjointed tension she'd been holding onto. It should not have surprised her to hear that he was alone, and yet she found herself surprised. He was a handsome stallion, she thought, although she didn't consider her the best judge of attraction. His dramatic features were offset by the pearly ivory of his body, and further accentuated by the washed red-umber of his dappling. Tall and feathered with eyes that could see right to the matter, it was a wonder that no one had snatched him away from the Crossing and claimed him as their own.
The urge to bring him home rose and faded in the same moment. She didn't know what implications there would be if she were to do so, and she was certainly not at a place in her life that warranted romantic companionship considering she could barely keep her own head on straight. "That sounds lonely," she murmured, not unkindly. Róisín was lonelier now than she had ever been before, but her desolation was of her own creation. She knew that it would be just as easy to return to her mother's side and to the family that she loved so dearly as it ever had been. "Did you come because of them?"
She watched him capture the charcoal contour of his lip between his teeth and had the strange urge to stretch out and soothe whatever it was that worried him. The thought of her - multiple hands and some hundred pounds smaller - comforting him was amusing somehow, and she stifled the reaction. If receiving affection was uncommon for her, giving it was down right rare. Unless of course, the equine in question was someone she could safely view as a younger sibling.
"Me," she murmured, forcing a smile back onto her lips. "Myself, and I." Not entirely true, but not a lie either. "I had..." She'd had a what? Friend didn't feel accurate to describe the parental bond that she and Iscariot had shared, but the golden stallion was not truly her father either. Companion seemed to imply the sort of romantic relationship Róisín had never experienced and so she defaulted for something close enough to the truth. "... an uncle that came with me to the Peak, originally." She smiled but turned away, seeking anything other than Orestes' eye. She was afraid he would see right through her and offer more of those suffocating platitudes. "But it's just me now."
Absently, she flicked her tail sharply, the pinpricks of pain forcing her mind to focus. "And the sisters of course," she murmured, turning back to him. "Do you know of the Peak?"