She hears something - something not the child, something other than her bright, high voice with it’s forced optimism and desperate begging. The tones are low, a stallion grown and for a moment she remembers meeting Viđarr so vividly, the way he had found her weeping and freezing and alone, had offered a shoulder to cry on, had murmured the thickly-accented words she so desperately needed to hear. “Viđarr?” she manages to rasp out hoarsely, breaking through the fog.
But no - this isn’t him. This stallion is pale golden, and suddenly he is not a stranger, nor her shadowy knight, but instead a spectre from her past. Eirlys flinches back from him sharply, weak legs scrambling on the matted, wet grass below them. Taurus? is the only desperate thought her addled, foggy brain can string together.
What is he doing here? How had he found her? What level of hell has she descended into?
The child - is it really some new, unnamed filly? Or is it the ghost of her sweet Anwen, here to haunt every waking minute, much like this fake-Taurus before her has come to do? After all, she deserves little more than suffering, after what she has done.
Eirlys hears the high, panicked voice of her daughter and gives in to the demands, holds still and tries to shake off what must be her mind playing tricks again. Taurus is not here; Anwen is not here. No matter how much she might ache for it, neither will ever come to pass again.
“No,” she finally rasps out. “You should - you should go. We’re fine. She’s – she’s just fine. She isn’t dead, she isn’t with her dad. She’s here and she’s fine.” It isn’t coherent, but might easily be the most she’s spoken in months – Eirlys can’t really recall. She can, however, feel the shaking excitement of the filly at her side, wonders if the leggy little girl is frantically shaking her head or otherwise begging this stranger not to leave them. After all, some sort of reaction from her mother, some proof of life, must be better than whatever she’s had these past few months.