my waves meet your shore, ever and evermore;

She hates this place Aries brought her to. She is a creature of lush green forests, of mist and dew and heavy-hanging branches. Instead, she has been exiled to this never-ending expanse of rolling sandy hills. Fearne often imagines that this is what hell looks like; sun and heat and nothing living for miles. She hates it here, although Cato has never known anything different and seems to be thriving well enough.

Perhaps worse than the sand and sun and isolation is that Aries has no position. He is not the leader of a territory, nor the satellite stallion of a herd. He isn’t even the well-loved son, given a place of honor and security. No…he is naught but a floater, clinging to the edges of the herd here in the Dunes. It isn’t the life she had sought for herself and for Cahir.

She bears affection for Aries, of course, but she is unhappy. Perhaps it is the pregnancy hormones speaking - she’s swollen with their child, and knows there are a few weeks yet until she will give birth. Then comes the horror of raising another child among the sand. But perhaps…perhaps once she isn’t uncomfortable and overheated, things will look better.

Aries doesn’t hold a position, but he has kept them safe. He loves her, he loves Cato. He’s kind and gentle and capable enough that they’ve not run into any serious issues. Probably she is just being dramatic, and this urge to leave him (before she’s held down with a newborn, pinned for months more while the child grows) and find somewhere she can thrive is a false one.

Abandoning him, separating their little family…it would be cruel, just because Fearne hates the weather. Sacrifice is what love is about, right? She can sacrifice her own comforts, for the love of her family. She sighs, and when Cahir comes bounding over to her, golden coat sweat-streaked and talking a mile a minute, she flicks an ear back and barely opens her eyes, sensitive against the bright sun reflecting off the sand surrounding them. “Cahir,” she says, exasperated and sore. “Please - go bother your father with that. It’s too hot for me to chase you today.”