but i was not blind;

Her father’s voice breaks over the rolling, green fields of the Prairie and Claret trembles - with excitement, with exhaustion, with relief. So many unnamed emotions she cannot pinpoint which it could possibly be. He approaches over a hill at a run, just as solid and treasured as he has ever been and Claret stops fighting back her sobs.

Finally, after so many months of pretending at being strong she lets out a massive, body-wracking sob and does not hold back her tears. He slows down as if he is shocked to see her, and Claret flushes in shame, her eyes unable to meet the piercing blue gaze of her father. She knows she looks dreadfully thin, nothing but skin and bones from her desperate fight for survival and concealment in the Dunes. If catching sight of her own protruding hips and ribs in the still water she found to steal a few secret sips of hydration hadn’t been evidence enough that she looked frightful, Evrain’s gentle insistence she eat before they leave would have served the same purpose.

Claret has never been particularly vain, but she has always appreciated her body - sleek and strong and tall, a pleasing mix of her mother and father. Surely now she is nothing but a shell of the proud young mare she was before her captivity. Her mother taught her well - her looks are just one more tool to keep herself safe. Where Riesling may have made herself more appealing, sought out her captor and bargained for freedom with her charms, Claret went the opposite way - she made herself as small and unappealing as possible, hoping to avoid unwanted attention.

“Dad,” she finally gets out through the sobs. Claret slumps against him in relief, soaks up his warmth and the safety of his scent. Oh she had missed being home. Nothing feels as right as the Prairie, the rolling green hills and secret little glade that she has come to call her own. Castillon reaches them next, and Claret can’t help but murmur out a soft greeting, leaning into the comforting embrace of her younger brother. Even he is a reassurance, proof that their home continued on safely even while she lived out her own version of hell. Seeing that confirmed settles something inside her - every day thoughts of her mother and the strange striped-bay and boldly splashed white form of her mystery uncle returning for her, visions of her father appearing across the sands and spiriting her safely away had kept her going.

“I don’t know what happened,” she finally manages to get out. The entire event was blurry - Rafe had come again, and he and Marceline fought. He had left without the mare he tried to steal and Marceline had followed him East in a rage. A storm brewed on the horizon and she did not return - only Evrain did, and with the announcement that Marceline was dead. Isik fled quickly on the heels on this proclamation. “That stallion - my Uncle- he came again, and Marceline fought. He left to go back the way you and Mom came from, and she followed him. And then – well, she didn’t come back.” Claret glances around, hesitating at the dark truth of her suspicions, but Castillon is no longer a child. “Evrain did, he came from the West a few days later, and he said Marceline was dead in the Badlands. That made him King – the stallion who stole me, he ran. Evrain made me eat and then he brought me back to Luthien and I snuck through the Savanna and the Forest because I didn’t know if they’d try to keep me too, and I -” she breaks off there, shuddering.

Did her uncle kill someone to secure her freedom? Is that what her mother meant, when she lamented over weak stallions and missing her own kin? Claret had heard rants about Zevulun not living up to expectations as a leader often enough, and never quite understood why her mom felt that way about her dad until she was herded away by a stranger, watching her father bleeding and unable to prevent her worst nightmare.

She never grasped the reality of what exactly Riesling claimed was missing in him until she watched her mother and an uncle she’d never come to know go to battle over her freedom, with threats and violence and truth. Claret isn’t sure how she feels - if Rafe really did kill Marceline just because of her, she knows she should feel guilty. The queen had a new babe and a herd and a life. It is almost certain that all of that ended because of her.

But all Claret can find within herself is a keen sense of relief, an understanding of what her mother has long urged her to seek. If she ever leaves again, she wants someone who will do what her uncle did - Claret loves her father, but she never, ever wants to be a victim to another kidnapping again.

“Have you seen mom?” she asks, a little desperately. Her thoughts are still scrambled, her body aching and as good as it is to see two of her family Claret needs proof of the safety of her mother to even think about rest.

claret