Miriella had been getting closer to the time she’d be able to utilize Nahawi’s help, the sap, and get herself over to the Badlands to finally confront the fear that was getting ever worse day by day. The longer time drew on for her and Vadim to be apart, the more she had been certain she was unwanted by the large stallion and had been an absolute idiot to ever think there was anything more to him than the crass, shallow thing he was. Was she so disgustingly desperate to be loved that she had projected her feelings onto him and tricked herself into thinking she’d seen something she hadn’t?
She couldn’t answer these questions on her own and soon, she would have no choice but to face their answers.
Then, that time drew unexpectedly sooner. Miriella was beyond shocked when she learned Parvati had taken Vadim away from where he’d been living in Salem and brought him here of all places. Just when she was about to get word to Nahawi that it was time for them to leave! The Inlet queen was a strange mare, Miriella thought, and despite giving little reason not to, she had never grown to trust her. Of course, Miriella hardly trusted anyone, so that wasn’t exactly a surprise.
Still, her bringing Vadim here, her lovely little daughter back home safe and sound and both of them confronting him on the shoreline… had pissed Miriella off.
It should be her that got to charge down that beach and rant at him and kick at him and ask him if he’d even thought about her just once when they were apart. But, too, she knew the trouble she’d invite asking it. She knew he’d look just like the day he had when he’d denied the chance to meet Elaine - his eyes would look coldly over her and he’d say one word that’d break her heart in two: No. She just knew he would.
Miriella withdrew into the woods, walking with her head hung much lower than it normally was, and trailed her way through the little hidden pathways she’d found in her aimless day-by-day wandering, making for a little meadow tucked higher inland than the beach. She told herself she would spend her day there and that promise lasted for a few hours, at least. Miriella ate a little of the dead grass she could dig up from under the fresh snowfall, drank the ice-cold water that hadn’t quite frozen over, and even found a somewhat dry place beneath a pine tree, backed up against a large granite rock that acted like a windbreak, and took a nap.
But she thought of Vadim the minute she opened her eyes, and sighed, and left her little hidden paradise to trail her way back down the mountain. She’d go wherever he was, wherever Parvati had let him go after she’d gotten done talking to him and then she’d…
And then she’d…
Walk right by him with her chin exaggeratedly pointed high in the air, pale tail flicking high off her hind. She shot him a glare as she moved past him and, if he looked up at her at all to meet her eyes, she blew an annoyed snort at him and turned forward, marching off as if her intent was never to stop nearby him in the first place.
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