“You shouldn’t be here.” Lohan’s voice, which was normally docile, was painfully tight. His blue eyes bore both fire and heartbreak as he looked at his brother, Lior, who’s pale mane was still stuck in wet clumps along his gilded neck.
“Are you telling me this as a Guardian of the Prairie?” Lior shot back with a tone that indicated he was unphased by his normally-loving brother’s disappointed, angry expression. He even gave his eyes somewhat of a roll, stretching out and shaking himself, letting the ocean mist away from his gold-and-white coat in a soft cloud of mist. It caught sunlight and sparkled with a myriad of rainbows before Lior tossed his head to move his wet mane to one side of his neck and fixed Lohan with a stare that was a bit more cruel than it should have been. “Papa’s orders that you’re following like a good little boy?”
“No,” Lohan said, his voice still surprisingly level. “Dad hasn’t said anything yet.”
Lior huffed a laugh. “Well, until dad says I can’t be here, I guess you don’t have any right to kick me out, hm?” He pointed out and Lohan struggled not to spit a curse word and ask Lior for the thousandth time what the hell had happened that made him this way. The bewilderment was bright in his eyes as he slowly shook his head in disbelief that this was who his half-brother, who he was once closer to than anyone, had become. Before he said anything he’d eventually regret, Lohan turned away with a small noise of disgust uttered under his breath, flicking out his pale-brown tail behind his haunches and stalking off back into the Prairie.
“Don’t worry, I won’t be staying very long!” Lior called out behind him, clearly amused by Lohan’s irritation, which only made it worse.
Lohan’s mood always soured after an encounter with Lior, which broke his heart a little more and a little more each time. They had once been so very close, practically shoulder-to-shoulder and hip-to-hip as they roamed the rolling hills of their home. Yet, shortly prior to their second spring, Lohan had begun to notice a change in Lior until his brother became someone Lohan no longer felt like he knew.
Lior was going to claim he had checked the Lagoon when their father sent them off the islands to look for Vervain, and there was no way of knowing for sure if he had or hadn’t. Nephilim explained the location the stallion kept Vervain was tucked deep at the furthest edge of the Lagoon… so there was a chance Lior would not come across it while searching there. Yet Lohan could not shake the thought that Lior had simply lied and never once stepped into the Lagoon; he’d never seemed particularly shaken by Vervain’s disappearance.
A frustrated sigh blew hard from Lohan’s nostrils before he physically shook his head, neck, even clear into his shoulders, down his spine, and finished with a few quick snaps of his tail. It was as if he needed to physically push aside all the negative emotions Lior brought up in him these days. As he settled, movement caught his eye off to the left and he lifted his head up higher, turning with his ears flicking forward to see if he recognized who of the many horses in the Prairie it was.
He did… not recognize her. Lohan felt his nerves jumble briefly up inside the bottom of his belly, but swallowed and managed to find it in himself to offer a rumbling nicker that was far deeper than he had right to make at three-years. The Prairie Guardian turned to carefully walk toward her, doing what he could to make it clear he was not meaning to approach as a threat, and the open curiosity across his expression was too obvious to miss.
The closer his pale hooves drew to her, the more he forgot about how angry and upset he’d been moments ago.
“Hello,” he called out as he drew close enough, “I’m Lohan,” he offered just before stretching out his neck and offering his muzzle toward her space, interested in touching against her velvet nose and drawing her sweet scent in more deeply and more personally than from afar. His ears tipped forward, not wanting to miss any bit of the moment she introduced herself.
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