They were tucked close together in one of the more sheltered areas of the Lagoon, where the scent of the bachelors didn’t hang quite so thickly in the air. Since their arrival, Lavender had opted to avoid the areas that were clear gathering points for the stallions who called the Lagoon home, not eager to be so overwhelmed by a crowd of strangers as she had been on the day she’d limped ashore, not far to the west of here.
Thus far, she and Ursa, who never left her side, had largely been left to their own devices. There had been quite a commotion not long ago, along with calls of challenge sounding at the borders, which seemed to have kept the two stallions that had brought them back rather preoccupied. Lavender, largely recovered from her arduous journey to the islands, and no longer limping, was not keen to stir the ire of their keepers, especially now that she had sensed the changes in her body, preparing her for the possibility of carrying a foal.
It was not what she wanted, not now, not here, and being around so many stallions - even if none of the others were as cruel and cunning as the two who’d descended upon her and Ursa in the plains north of here - served to flood the little mare with anxiety. Thankfully, the presence of the towering mare, who’d taken it upon herself to stick to the palomino as a protector, served to alleviate much of that.
But as the season progressed, Lavender only found herself more and more restless at night, nervous about who might attempt to sneak up on her under the cover of night. Little by little, she began to steal an hour or two of sleep during the day, to make up for the hours she spent wide awake at night, pressed close to Ursa’s side, twitching and murmuring in a light, fitful sleep.
And it came to get so bad that even the smallest of sounds would wake her. Jusst like now - a whisper of movement through the leaves somewhere off to her left, and Lavender’s eyes were wide open, and staring into the dark. She saw nothing, but as the sound continued, the delicate mare’s body tensed, and she shrank into herself. "Ursa? Ursa!" came the frantic whisper, only for it to be an owl, taking off in search of a more successful hunting ground.
Lavender felt her throat tighten with relief and regret.Ursa faithfully kept watch over her during the daylight hours so she could sleep in peace, and how was that kindness repaid? By disrupting what little peace Ursa could claim for herself. "I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have disturbed you, it just… Startled me." Lavender’s words were soft, little more than a whisper, her muzzle canted toward her companion’s ear.
A little while later, still awake - there would be no hope of sleep for Lavender now - the overo mare found herself muttering aloud, just idle thoughts that slipped out, or perhaps were quietly set free in an attempt to empty her mind of some of the worry that weighed heavy upon her, the way snow did the branches of trees in the winter.
"I don’t think they’ll be coming back for us." A vague thought, one that went unexplained, but was not truly all that cryptic. (At some point, without her realizing, Lavender had begun no longer to think of herself as an individual, but as belonging with the mare beside her, as though wherever they stayed, wherever they went, it would be together.) "It’s too hard. And why would they, anyway?" No one here owed Lavender anything. No one knew her at all, really, except for the scarred brown mare who shielded her from the wind.
"But it’s okay, because I don’t need anything from anyone else." With a gentle exhale, Lavender reached to brush her muzzle over the curve of Ursa’s neck. "And I don’t think I’ve said it in so many words, but…” THe pony trailed off, and lapsed into silence that spanned so long, it could have been that sleep had crept up on her. But no, she was still awake, only her eyes weren’t so wide, and the tension with which she’d been wound seemed to have dissipated.
Lavender was content, truly, and felt safe in the stillness of the night, having managed to block out the rustle of night-hunting creatures by focusing on the steadiness of the silvery-maned tobiano’s breathing. "Thank you for choosing me."
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