Common

She fled as though the demons of hell were after her. Which, to be entirely fair, was probably not all that far off. Once Raegar figured out she'd managed to slip his leash in the confusion as he dealt with his own herd, he was bound to come after her.

In a way, she almost felt bad. None of them knew where Rafe had gone, and here she was taking Raegar's one remaining parent away, but she knew that was being too generous to herself. She hadn't really ever been a parent for the stubborn little colt, not as a newborn, nor as he aged. They had only ever shared space together against their will, and while her feelings toward him had certainly softened over the years, they had never exactly been close.

When neither of you liked talking about your feelings, it made it a little hard to communicate that you had any.

And so she had been selfish. She needed to find where Rafe went. Certainly not because she loved him, and absolutely not because she had no idea what to do with herself without him, but because the Badlands needed him. Arsinoe and Raegar and the rest all needed him.

The swim, however, had terrified her. There was a reason that Rafe had never needed to chain her to Salem as the ocean did a mighty fine job of that all by itself. Plunging into the surf in the vain hope that she would one day find that striped bastard again was the bravest (and most stupid) thing she had ever done. Memories of her near-drowning hastened her footsteps long after she'd slipped beyond the beach's edge, and sent her jogging well into the midst of the Commons. It had been nearly a decade since she had last wandered the Crossing, and longer than that since she had bothered herself with anywhere other than the Falls so it took her a long moment to place her current location. She had hoped to hit the falls again, but as she peered at the too-close mountains, and at the far-off spit of rock in the ocean, she realized she was deep into the Commons.

The panic she'd only just managed to evade stole her breath again and she froze, her eyes going wide with panic even as her ears flattened back against the nape of her neck. No. This was wrong. She wasn't supposed to be here. Rolling her weight back, Velahrn launched herself back in the direction she'd come, praying no one would take notice.