Falls

When they hit solid ground, he feels the wash of relief hard enough that he almost feels his knees collapse. He manages to withstand the compulsion, manages to lock those knees and to stand rigidly beneath the canopy of safety that only makes him wish to collapse the more. The warmth of a blanket, the surety of the hay and stable-warm grain, the curry and soft coos of a groom… it was times like this that he most missed those things that made some horses on these islands scoff at his tenderfootedness.

But his daughter is safe, is not eaten up by this wild world he’d mistakenly chosen. Sunshine finding her true love again had taken him as a shock to the system - especially her plea not to make his daughter swim to the mainland with them.

Brightwine, for what it was worth, thrived beneath the doting of the mare. She curled into that bright red side and lipped tiredly at the cream of that mane, Icewine looking on obediently as he is dismissed by the mare. He stands with an angle towards warming his daughter but with clear attempt to divert himself from direct contact with the mare who so clearly did not want him to be ‘present’ in that way.

"My daughter and I got caught in the flash flood after the rain made the lake burst its banks. I am all she had, but I am glad we found someone to join our fight. We would have been lost without your assistance." Blunt and free with his praise as ever, clear and without guile or pomp to butter himself up, that was Icewine. Sweet and made only sweeter as things grew more and more hard on him. "The second such of mine. I fear that I have been cursed and therefore have cursed my daughters to never be raised by their mothers." He sounds more tired that woebegone, Sunshine having parted sweetly with Brightwine and Celestine simply too weak to raise Blackfrost. "Truly, thank you."