Since his discovery of the chain of islands, the thickly built, hairy brute of a stallion had found himself drifting back and away every few seasons. Eventually it seemed whatever intrigue he had discovered here would slip away, and his nomadic pull would drive him from past commitments and back out onto the great wide unknown of what these islanders referred to as the Mainlands. Yet, for whatever reason, it was only a few seasons that would pass and whatever debauchery he could get into while he was away before Vane inevitably found himself standing on that same shoreline.
And as the saltwater lapped at his feathering, making it damp and hairy, he’d look out at the distant, looming shape of the island on the horizon, and he’d charge into the surf and make the swim, uncertain how long he intended to stay that time.
The fact he most likely had children, or at least a child, was not what brought him here. Vane had once known love of a mother, but never of a father. Even the absence had not seemed to magically inspire a resolve inside him to act differently and be a present father, let alone a loving one. Men had always been cruel things, and they had taught him at a young age that he must be cruel when he was a man, too. If he could not be strong enough to win and keep his spot at the table, he would starve, and it would be his fault alone.
Still dripping water and with his heavy hair laid slick against his pearl coat, the hefty stallion made from the shoreline further inland. It was early yet, and he thought he wouldn’t be likely to come across very many mingling horses. He was wrong, of course, coming to a sudden stop as a brown mare seethed at him. If you wake her, her voice cut like a blade through the air, I’ll happily demonstrate just how painful giving birth is.
Vane’s blue eyes (only one was visible, the other hidden behind a wet curtain of brown hair) moved behind the mare and to the lump of black and white sleeping behind her. He smiled, mostly at the mother’s ferocity, and at what she’d said. His gaze flicked sharply back to her and he slowly, quietly put the large front hoof down that he’d lifted before, which’d frozen in mid-step when she whirled on him. It barely made a rustle of noise in the spring grass with how delicately he set it down.
It was likely expected that he would gather his hind and pull himself slowly back and away to offer them sanctuary and peace as the new child rested. He had no intention of doing so. He grinned a grin that he’d often been told was infuriating, especially when he gave it to a woman he knew was irritated with him.
“I’ve never found myself very curious of what that feels like,” he replied coolly and with some faint amusement strung through his words. He already spoke low and rough, from somewhere deep in his broad chest, so it wasn’t difficult to keep his voice hushed in a further attempt not to rouse the sleeping babe at her feet. “Though can it be that bad? You mares keep doing it.” Something glittered in his eyes, a playful challenge, maybe. Vane knew he was wading in dangerous waters by not backing away and choosing instead to pick on this prickly new mother, but it turned out he’d already found his new fun and he had no intention of letting it slip from his grasp so quickly.
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