like a moth to the flame ( quinn ) Posted on March 7, 2024 at 03:54:38 PM by Kipling
He’s not coming back. It had been phrased as an incredulous question, at first, about two weeks after Kipling had last seen the painted stallion. In the weeks and months that followed Quinn’s disappearance, it slowly solidified into fact. Heartbreak eventually replaced her initial panic and the hopelessness that had followed.
From what precious little Quinn had been willing to share with her, Kipling had understood the portion of his life that had kept him away. He’d made it sound like a loveless political arrangement that tied him to someone else, or perhaps Kipling had fancied it that way. Time had taken much of what she remembered of what he had told her in those first days and months. She’d been so happy with their arrangement and how very present he was that it had simply dwindled in importance.
Kipling's last hope had been the foray she taken her sons on last spring after Steinbeck turned one. They had headed north and wandered the two northern islands in search of Quinn. They found nothing, not even a trace of his scent. This seemed to break Kipling more than his prolonged absence had. If Quinn wasn't here, it meant one of three things. He had either lied to her about everything, or he had abandoned her and their children. The only other option she could think of was that he had died, which is what she ultimately chose to believe after being unable to reconcile the first two explanations.
Life went on in spite of everything. Salinger chose to join the Lagoon after meeting its boss Nahawi. Kipling hadn't exactly been a fan of his decision, but it had been his decision to make. He wasn't a colt anymore. She and Steinbeck still saw him quite often since he visited them weekly, which had been a larger reassurance than the mottled mare expected. Salinger was getting stronger in his time with the Lagoon brutes, but he had not changed in his mind or ways. Steinbeck often visited with him there on the outskirts where Kipling had dared not go. It was on one of these visits that Salinger had offered to stay in the Meadow with his brother so that Kipling could have time to herself. He had not let her say no, knowing she would try.
This was how Kipling came to the shores of the Desert alone in the first weeks of autumn. She had never been on Salem before, or even in a desert on the mainland from whence she’d come, but she had heard tales. In an effort to avoid any and all Lagoon stallions, Kipling had made a longer trek from the southernmost point of the Commons across the channel to Atlantis, down the western Atlantean coast to the very tip of Paradise, and then made the very long swim over to Salem. A strong current had swept her past the outreaching Hills and down to the Desert shoreline. Kipling had barely made it in on the tide.
She’d had to lay there in the surf for a little while after making it ashore before the mare was able to teeter over to the shade beneath a rocky ledge. The mare was in the earliest spans of the Desert’s shoreline where the turf beyond the sand of the beach was still hard-packed and craggy like the Hills just to the east. Kipling was still trembling with exhaustion when she heard the sound of hooves and skittering rocks nearby. The golden sand that still clung to her wet fur fell in traces as she struggled not to panic and try to escape. Kipling hoped that the scent of her still wet skin would be overpowered by the tang of salt so that she could go unnoticed. She was still tucked reasonably enough under the rocks that she might go unseen. And so, holding her breath, the spotted mare waited, knowing that she would be too weak to fight if someone found her.