Meadow

Titania creeps through the frost-laden Meadow, following the river downstream.

Her autumnal visit to Luthien had been... fruitful, in more ways than one. She still wasn't quite sure if Naydra was real, or if she was some kind of manifestation of the Thicket's sacred birch grove sent to draw her back in. The Thicket was a familiar place, if not necessarily comforting, and she had hovered around its periphery for a good while - but it was full of ghosts, even if Naydra wasn't one, and the constant reminders of her brief stint of happiness there, of Rille and Cressida and then Beau and the others, became too much for her to bear long-term. She had ventured to the other parts of the emerald isle, became momentarily distracted by certain business in the Prairie, and after that, she swam back to the Crossing, the memories of her missing children fresh again in her mind's eye. She skulked about the rocky crags of the Peak, and when she found neither sign nor scent of Faline or the grey-striped warrior from the Common, she moved on, heading due south and combing through the Crossing as she went.

Tonight, she sticks to the treeline, even though she'd chosen a new moon for her descent towards more dangerous parts of the main island. She'd hoped to be farther by now, but her widening barrel coupled with the still-icy downslopes had slowed her pace considerably, and here the night sky remains stubbornly clear, only a few small clouds scudding across its marbled surface. The view of the cosmos might be pretty, but it is useless to her. She needs to be cloaked in darkness, made from it; not even starlight can touch her. Not when she carries a foal, and the world is thawing, and all of the Islands' rabid beasts are emerging from their wintry tombs, starving and persistent, and she is ripest for the taking.

The dark mare's breath fogs out around her as she walks, her hips swaying to accommodate the roundness of her abdomen. She keeps to the deer trails, winding down the narrow pathways less used by her equine cohorts, trying to cover her tracks. The air is still; all she hears is the muffled crunch of her hooves over frosted ground, the soft whuff of her breathing, the faint echo of running water. She is vigilant, but she feels truly alone - and then, just like that, just like it always is, she's not, and another soul has joined her, rustling from behind a curtain of tangled branches and deep, interminable shadow.

Titania's body warms in spite of the early-spring chill, all five senses pointed in its direction. She pauses for a moment, weighing her options... and then gives a sharp, decisive snort - nothing more - and waits, her heart in her throat, to see what fate has brought her way.