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

Daffodil’s birth was nothing like Kestrel’s was, not that Talya remembered any of the trauma that had tangled with her son’s birth. It was definitely still quite a painful ordeal, leaving Talya’s cream and white coat slick with sweat and her hind stained red with blood. But there were no invasive memories of an abusive, heartbreaking past. There was only the aches and the pains, and Kestrel’s worried face just on the outskirts of her peripherals where he paced a wide circle around the clearing she’d gone down in.

Then there was her daughter, Kestrel’s sister, squirming and alive and the prettiest yellow-gold the more Talya licked her daughter’s curly baby-fuzz coat clean.

Daffodil, she was aptly named, and Talya started having a ton of fun getting to know her, just like she had Kestrel. Daffodil was silly like her mother and less inclined to take responsibility for a situation like her brother. She was barely half a year old but already she was her mother’s steadfast sidekick and she had her brother wrapped all around her metaphorical finger. Kestrel had a very hard time saying no to her big, pleading eyes.

That was why they were playing along the Forest’s stretch of shoreline rather than further inland, tucked within the shadows of the towering trees. Daffodil had wanted to look for shells and Talya had thought that sounded like a fantastic idea. Before Kestrel could say otherwise (not that he’d really intended to) the pair had bounded off, leaving him to shout indignantly and scramble off after them, chasing the giggles that floated over their backs.

Daffodil’s hooves skittered against the grainy sand, sending it flying ahead of herself as she dug grooves into the beach and sank her weight to help herself stop quickly. She looked with wide-eyed surprise at the strangers up ahead - a mare she’d never seen and a colt who looked to be somewhere around her same age. She’d never seen another foal before…

Talya skittered up behind her with a little more grace (but only a little bit) and looked with surprise at the mother and son pair just down the way from them. Kestrel managed to slow himself without disrupting the sand the way his sister and mother had done, and he watched the pair carefully as well, not recognizing them at all.

“Hi!” Talya barked out, grinning and shouldering past her daughter to walk closer to the pair. Daffodil scampered up to stay at her chest, eyes not yet leaving the colt. She was both shy and excited, somehow. “You’re new here huh?” Talya said, still smiling, stopping in front of them with her pale tail flagged happily off her rump. “Did the new Forest God invite you to live here? It’s a very fun place to live, you’ll really like it here.”

“Mom-” Kestrel sighed a little as he came up alongside Talya and then smiled patiently at the mare. “I’m Kestrel, this is my mom, Talya, and my sister Daffodil.” He explained, gesturing to his mother and then to his sister, who stood between him and his sister. She grinned at the colt, ears pointed forward at him. “What my mother means to ask is if Rilke invited you to live here with us, or if you’re just visiting.” He was only a year and a half, but he spoke with the candor and maturity of an adult.