Common

It's one thing to desire independence, and quite another to have it foisted upon you with the death of your own mother.

Dawn has never been to her mother's homeland before, but Aysu had filled her head with colorful images of it, weaving stories as they lay in the grass with the starry sky swirling above their heads, and building a rich inner world that never left Dawn's mind even after she drifted away into sleep. The five islands, each with their own climate so that they were like different worlds, fascinated Dawn and were beaten only by the craggy remnants of the sixth, half-swallowed by the sea but still alive with memories of the herds that had once called it home long before her mother Aysu was born.

Now the Crossing Isle stretches out before Dawn, a vast swathe of mountainous green below a blue sky, and it's strange—and somewhat deflating—to compare it to what her childhood self had imagined. She wonders what her mother would say if she was here: would she look at the flat expression on Dawn's face and recognize disappointment?

If she did, Dawn could only imagine that Aysu would have found a way to lighten her two-year-old daughter's mood, as she always did. She would tell a funny story about something that happened near a particular tree, or show Dawn her favorite type of flower that only grew on the shady side of the mountains, or bring life to a dull meadow by reciting the bloody history of two warring herds that had raised hooves against one another in it. Aysu always had a way of seeing the beauty and magic in things, and it had been easy for Dawn to follow in her suit when they were together, never sleeping in the same place twice, always finding something new and exciting to behold.

But for the first time in her life, Dawn is alone. The gangly, mousy-brown-and-white body of her youth has matured, and her first season is upon her, sharpening everything into painful focus with desires she's had explained to her before but that clash with the grieving part of her that simply wants to lie down and die in the grass. Everywhere she turns, everything she looks at, spurs her to turn and make a comment to a mare that is not there. Her decision to come to the islands had been one last desperate attempt to feel connected to her mother, and it had given her enough drive and purpose to forget her grief for a time. But now that she is here, there is nothing left to do: nothing other than to remember how very alone she is now, in a land she only knows stories about. While Aysu had family here, who knows where they are now—if they're even still alive—whether Dawn will be able to find them, and whether they'll even care that she exists.

Look for the light, she hears her mother say, and that's how Dawn finds herself swallowing against the lump in her throat and meandering toward a tall cluster of yellow flowers as bright as a stellar nursery at the edge of the clearing. What are they, buttercups? Goldenrods? Her mother would have known. Dawn leans in to inhale their fragrance, and it's then the head of a stranger on the other side of the flower patch rises above the wall of leafy green and butter-yellow, so close Dawn can almost smell their grazing on their breath.

"Oh!" she cries, shying backward a few feet, her mismatched eyes flashing their whites. "Sorry! I didn't see you there." She lets out a nervous chuckle and flicks her peachy tail against her hindquarters. "Gosh, you made me jump."