Falls

   Nerves bundled in her chest, but Daire stood fast. She didn't dare move even a step in another direction while waiting for the other equine to show their face. When he could see they were just going to stay and wait, Lir tucked in closer to her, seeking out any warmth he could glean. The mare's skin prickled in the cold as a breeze began to stir around them. In all reality, it wasn't long before the stranger appeared, but the chill of winter has a way of distorting time.

Black ears twisted forward upon his approach. Yes, a stallion. Her breath trembled, wavering vapors into the winter air when she saw him. The pale of him moved slowly, taking time to let the two of them adjust to his presence. Daire watched him carefully, but Lir had turned his head quickly upon hearing the delicate crunch of snow. The stallion extended his maw to them, and Lir was suddenly alert and now looking to his mother for answers. Daire breathed a moment, the sound of it raw in the stillness. But she nodded, and that was enough for Lir.

The amber-splattered boy jutted his own nose forward so excitedly that he practically smashed it into the stallion's waiting face. His nostrils quivered so with the little breaths he let out. His tail was still fluttering this way and that when Daire chuckled and lipped at his rump to come along back to her. There were still things to discuss. The stranger spoke then, after taking a step away from them. "I hope you haven't had too hard of a journey to get here."

Gosh, she could practically hear the sympathy in his voice. A young Daire would have bristled at that and laughed it off. Pity was uncomfortable, unwarranted, and unwelcome. Nothing was a challenge to her. She could do it all easily. She'd show anyone that this was her world, and they were living in it. But that wasn't her anymore. The years had been hard, and they had done their due diligence in wearing her down. She wanted to say that it wasn't hard, but it had been. Trying to cross shallow seas with breaks few and far between. With a yearling. While pregnant. In winter. They could have only made it to islands right off the coast of all she'd known, and Daire would still be grateful for it to be over. But she didn't say anything, and he continued.

His name and the names of his land and corresponding island meant nothing to her. She wasn't anywhere near home. Not that home had been one place in a very long time. Since some of her elder children had been born perhaps. Corraling her thoughts, Daire sought to focus. "I am called Daire," she stated simply, her voice even and measured. Don't sound desperate. "And this is my son, Lir." The colt flashed a quick smile at the cream stallion but remained quiet. Don't break. "It was a long enough journey that I'm not at all sure where we are."

She was trying to keep it together. More for Lir and the foal within her than for herself. How long had she been doing this alone? How long had she pushed everyone away before they stayed that way? The brindled mare supposed she couldn't blame them now. There was no telling if anyone she knew, if any of her children, were alive or dead. How petty and small she'd been. Daire supposed this was a fitting situation for her: alone and wandering. She knew if she spoke then that her voice would waver, that she might betray some of what she had tried so desperately to hide. Despite that, she found the strength to: "Can you help us?"