This quiet was different from the sort that normally shared the space between Fell and Maziel. A frown pinched lightly at her brow, somewhat narrowing her dark brown eyelids around her blue-white eyes. It was not one that looked angry (as if Maziel could ever look angry), but simply further concerned. The shift of his body was subtle, barely audible, but with her ears pointed toward him, Maziel could tell he had turned from her. His breathing wasn’t as easy to hear as it was before; now it seemed hushed against skin, not exhaled into open air. She blinked a few times inquisitively, but didn’t say anything or even move again. Maziel stayed quietly standing where she’d stopped and continued to wait.
Her heart was pounding, and the blood rushed like the ocean in her ears. But Maziel managed to keep her breathing level, her attention held only by Fell.
It wouldn’t have mattered if they stayed still like that for hours, statues frozen in between emotions, Maziel would have never moved. But the quiet hesitance only stretched between them for minutes at the most before there was new noise. The weight of a horse pressed on one hoof into soft, mineral-rich soil.
Fell had stepped toward her.
This registered just as Maziel heard him take another step, her head lifted a notch higher and her expression became somewhat brighter, hopeful, and curious. He’d stopped, but the air pushed subtly around his head and neck (if she were not listening so intently as she always was to understand the world around her, she may have not heard it) as he unfurled toward her. Then, gentle pressure as Fell’s forehead pressed against her chest. Maziel’s head tilted and she made a comforting noise behind her closed lips, a small nicker that was just barely audible, but he’d feel it rumble in her chest against his brow. She stretched her elegant, long neck and rested it lightly over his, sighing warmth against his skin and into his hair.
Though she ached for him, she said nothing. Maziel let her presence act as what she hoped was some sort of balm for as long as he chose to seek it. Then, after enough time passed that she felt it was okay to break the silence, she said, “Whatever happened doesn’t have to follow you from yesterday into today.” Maziel could not know what it had been exactly and maybe she never would; maybe Fell’s wretched sins that her sister seemed so convinced she must know of would remain forever a mystery to Maziel. Knowing or not knowing would never change the words she was speaking now, nor would they change the gentle and loving way with which she delivered them. “Or, if it’s something that has to follow you forever, maybe it can be a lesson.”
Maziel had learned that in life, the most difficult lessons were often accompanied by heart-aching grief.
“You can return from this,” her tone was still gentle, but almost firm now; it was apparent she held no doubt when it came to Fell’s capabilities. Maziel believed in Fell; the more she observed him as a leader, the stronger her belief grew. She softened again and brushed his hair with her lips before murmuring into his skin, “but only if you want to.” Not if she did, not if his children did. Too, there was no judgment in her tone, nothing that implied the right answer should be that he wanted to come back from what had happened. There was no right or wrong answer, no black or white, no direct guide to follow to make everything better, or any way to keep everything happily the same as it had been before. Maziel knew now that her suspicions to worry that something serious had happened had been correct, and as she stood here with Fell, she wondered what the impact would be not only on the herd, but on him, too.
The most she could do was stand in these moments when he allowed her to, and hope she could help him in even the smallest of ways.
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