Common

This girl is a gun, before you know it, it's done
And you'll be wishing that you crossed your fingers

t was not every day that Marceline got so lucky. Yet fortune seemed to smile upon her today as she found herself in the Commons, looking upon a figure she had never expected to see again: Velahrn. She'd been one of Rafe's, once upon a time, though Marceline knew nothing of her beyond her name and what she looked like. She had tried, once, to take the seal mare from her ex-lover out of spite, and she'd have succeeded if it weren't for the freak accident that sent her tumbling down that cliffside. But Rafe was gone now, and as Marceline imagined his poor, besotted mares scattering to each corner of the islands in desperate search of him, broken-hearted and alone, a spiteful smile curled at the edges of her lips. What a beautiful twist of fate that the one she'd once wanted should end up here, right in front of her.

In the blink of an amber eye Marceline finds herself faced with a decision: intervene, or watch as her once-was prize slips away. If she were wise she would not consider what she was considering. The other Peak mares would despise her if they knew she had taken an unwilling hostage all while preaching peace and protection to their faces and denouncing the Lagoon for the same action she was thinking of taking.

Though really, what good was forcing Velahrn to come with her if Rafe wasn't around to suffer the pain of knowing she was under Marceline's control? It was him she wanted to hurt, not an innocent mare who had once attached herself to him. But the greedy, insidious voice in the back of her mind reminded her she was owed something precious. Should Rafe return to the Islands, having one of his harem under her could prove quite useful.

Perhaps, Marceline thought, there was a less barbaric approach she could try. A shared pain she could use to coax Velahrn into trusting her. She just had to stop her from making a hasty escape. In an instant Marceline propelled herself forward and made to intercept the seal mare's path, placing herself bodily between the fleeing woman and her exit out of the Commons. Sharp hooves gouged the soft earth as she skidded to a halt ahead of Velahrn, stubbornly blocking her exit.

"You really shouldn't make yourself look so eager to get away, you know," she called into the space between them. "You might attract attention from someone more unwanted than little old me." Marceline motioned with a nod of her head to where a couple of nondescript stallions lingered at the edge of the Commons, the commotion turning their curious eyes towards the pair. "They're like wolves, you know. They see you run and their first instinct is to chase." Marceline turned her shrewd gaze back to Velahrn's face, forcing her features to soften at the edges as she offered, "Why not let me accompany you to wherever it is you're going? Surely a pair like us could ward off any unwanted attentions, hm?"