“S’okay,” Khan cut in, mumbling in response to the apology instinctively, mistaking it for simple sympathy at having been left by his mother. He was used to shrugging things off, and had kept himself carefully distant from the Badlands herd, only feeling comfortable around Arsinoe and the father they shared. It was easier, to pretend that he was fine, that he didn’t miss his mother, but the truth was… The truth was, here and now, the nonchalance wasn’t born of a misunderstanding. It was a last, desperate attempt to reinforce the cracks that threatened to bring the wall he’d built around himself tumbling down. And somehow, somehow before th boy before him spoke the words, Khan knew.

There was a great roaring sound in his ears, like the tumult of the ocean in the storms that sometimes ravaged the coastline of Salem. But that soft, sad voice, barely more than a whisper, cut through the pounding of Khan’s breaking heart. Darshan… Darshan -

She was gone, and she’d never be coming back.

Khan stiffened where he stood, so slow in comprehending. He worked his jaw. Swallowed thickly. His curl-tipped ears drooped. “I don’t believe you,” he finally managed, intending to pour force and anger into the words (to keep the colt at bay, to pretend like he didn’t care - that he didn’t care that the mother who’d left him behind was gone), but his voice broke, betraying him - he didn’t for one second think that the small, soft-eyed boy before him was capable of making such a terrible thing up, and he blinked back tears that burned his eyes, breath hitching in his throat as he tried to keep himself together.

How? he wanted to ask, but it didn’t really matter. There were untold dangers that were just part of life, nevermind illness and injury. That the golden boy knew his mother’s name indicated that at least she had made it here. Swallowing again, struggling to draw in a guttering gulp of air, Khan opened his mouth to say something, but the words didn’t come, and he painfully clacked his teeth shut.

Moments (minutes?) later, he tried again, body aching from standing so still, and hunching so tightly - a futile attempt to stop himself from falling apart.

“When?” he croaked, voice hoarse and strained, a wild desperation in his eyes.

If only he had buried his wounded pride in the sands, and let go of the resentment that had held him fast to the rock and his home, he might have come sooner, and maybe… Maybe he could’ve saved her. Maybe he could’ve been there at the end, and given her a sense of peace, told her that she’d hurt him, but that he’d try his best to understand.

But he hadn’t come. He’d watched and waited from the dusty heights and allowed bitterness to take root in his heart. It withered instantly, and left him feeling cut and bleeding. In days to come, the wound would heal. But the scar would always remain, and he’d never be free of the ache of it.

“Did she -” say anything about me? “Did she suffer long?” The moment he’d spoken the words, Khan wished he could take them back. Because he didn’t want to know. And more than that, he didn’t want to lay the burden of his error upon the narrow shoulders of the kind-hearted stranger. For a moment, a fragile ghost of a smile flickered weakly across his pale mouth. What courage and strength it would’ve taken the frosted palomino to be honest with him.

Khan blinked, and felt hot tears slip down his cheeks. “This was where she wanted to be,” he sobbed, and shied away, taking a step back and dropping his head to furiously wipe his face against an ashen knee, curling in on himself, to try and stem the tide of his raw and ragged grief, so that it wouldn’t wash over the boy who’d been forced into the role of bearing such grim tidings. “This was where her home was, and her Heart.” If she were to be at rest anywhere, Khan was glad it was here.

When his breathing had evened out a little, he cast a self conscious, tear-bright glance at the colt from the corner of one blue eye, and tried to smile again, but his pink lips merely twitched. “What’s your name?” he rasped, ears flattening a little further at the rough sound of his voice. And then he waited patiently, attempting to distract himself just a little yes, but his interest was genuine. Khan gave a subtle nod of acknowledgement when the other colt introduced himself, and turned back toward him a little more, from where he’d been leaning against one of the young trees. He dropped his gaze to the ground for a moment, suddenly fearful of allowing his gaze to wander across those grassy plains again, where somewhere, his mother’s body rested.

The silence got to be too much for the overo, though, and he directed his focus to the golden boy’s hooves, and breathing in slow and steady, Khan slowly lifted his gaze. As he did so, he noted details about the boy, latching on to the smallest of observations, like the way all four of his legs were whiter than the softest of sands that rose like hills in the territory to the east of the Badlands. The whiteness splashed crookedly across Jasper’s golden chest, like the foam of the waves whispering ashore when the ocean was at its calmest.

His eyes were the blue of the sky, lighter than Khan’s own.

A memory surfaced, of a time when, after a rare raifull that was heavy enough to soak the parched earth of the Badlands, a thin film of water had remained for a short time upon a flat expanse of salty rock. It had reflected with far more vibrance and clarity than the watering hole did. Khan had stared into the depths of his own eyes, a deep, rich blue, like the ocean beyond the sandbars. And the sky had been so bright and wide above him, and that night, Khan had dreamed that he had the wings of a bird.

He broke from the memory, shaking it off hastily, embarrassed to think that he’d been staring so openly. But already, the pain of loss began its incessant throbbing in his chest, and Khan felt his face beginning to crumple again. “Thank you, Jasper,” he whispered under his catching breath. With what little bravery he had in him, he chased the memory, regretful that he’d banished it so quickly. If he had wings now, maybe he could fly beyond the horizon, where the sorrow could not follow.

But no, he had promises to keep, and keep them, he would. If only Arsinoe were here now.

And besides, small and delicate as he was, Jasper was even more so. Refined in build, and Khan imagined that when he moved, it would be with the same grace and lightness that he thought he’d glimpsed in the depths of those empyreal eyes, if there were ever a horse that could fly, surely it would be this boy, formed from ivory and softly gleaming gold.