"Why do you always need something?" Vivienne had complained as they walked together through the late spring foliage, her gaze far away from the small child that hovered at her hip.
"I'm hungry. I'm tired. I'm bored.," she mocked in a whiny child's voice, the anger evident in every syllable that she spit into the world.
"Well I'm sick of it. Sick of this place. Sick of motherhood. And most of all," she snarled as she turned to glare at her month's old daughter, her face a cold mask of fury.
"I'm sick of you."
Vex stayed in the small glade where Vivienne had left her, hoping that this round of her mother's ire would be like the rest. It was common for her dam to get angry about some minor inconvenience - a stallion whose interest wouldn't turn her way, a perceived slight from another mare, a shift in the wind that mussed her carefully arranged mane. Often, once angered, Viv would take out her frustrations on her daughter, as her own mother had done to her. Time usually soothed her, and Vex had learned quickly to make herself scarce during those moments until reason replaced the loathing on her dam's face.
But she knew better. This time was different. This time the words hadn't been wildly thrown in frustration, as apt to hit a stranger as they were to hit her. This time, her mother had meant it. And this time, she wasn't coming back.
Minutes turned to hours turned to days turned to weeks, and Vex stopped looking to see if Vivi was coming back. The first days were the hardest. With only nubs for teeth, it was largely the kindness of strangers that kept her belly full, but she had shied sharply away from any offers to stay for reasons she didn't fully understand. A part of her craved the security of her mother's side. Vivienne's affection in those first few weeks had never been unconditional, but it had been the closest thing she'd ever experienced to love. To have it so freely offered by those mares was alien and terrifying, and so she always skittered away in the night to the glade her mother had abandoned her in.
Her boldness grew as she became older, and she'd taken to leaving the glade most days to spy on the other horses. The way they spoke and courted and fought and so on captivated her. It all seemed like a foreign language, one that her mother had never bothered to teach her, but she was absolutely determined to learn.
When she arrived, she'd almost missed the reddish colt perched on the rim of the waterfall's pool... mostly because he looked more like a mud puddle than he did a horse. Her steps stalled and she watched him for a long moment before lifting her slender head and clearing her throat dramatically for his attention.
"Is this your first time at the waterfall?" Her question, while delivered with an echo of her mother's poise, was nonetheless judgemental, and her muzzle wrinkled with its delivery.
"Lots of horses bathe here," she continued, nodding toward the water.
"It wouldn't take long to get clean."
Filly Teke Mutt Silver Bay* Roan Overo 15.3hh ışıksız x Vivienne