“Hey, it’s okay,” Lohan found himself saying, despite a deeper frown digging across his brow and realizing that likely wasn’t the best thing to tell her. He didn’t know what’d pushed her to this point but clearly he, a stranger, was in no position to tell her everything was okay. “I mean- sorry- just,” He stumbled over the apology and stuttered as he couldn’t find a way to explain it, not in any way that would matter. A low breath blew heavily out of his mouth, mostly in frustration at himself. He’d spent plenty of time talking kindly with his sisters when they’d cried, why was seeing this mare so beside herself absolutely undoing him?
He even felt a brief sting in his pale blue eyes, though he blinked it away and made sure not even a gloss would reveal the sight of her tears nearly brought him to it. It seemed so strange and so foolish, after all, she was nothing more than a stranger. He didn’t even know why she was crying.
Again, the young stallion glanced up around them to see if any brute was about to come charging out, but no one did. Some glanced over with varying levels of concern (and nosiness, he thought) as the sound of her sobs reached them, and it took everything in Lohan not to turn his ears back and snort at them so they’d mind their own damn business.
He focused back on her.
“You don’t have to tell me anything, it’s okay, but can I at least lead you out of the Commons? This isn’t the um… safest place for a breakdown, y’know?” And he tried to smile, but he was painfully aware of how awkward it most likely looked. “Maybe back home, wherever that is?”
The idiot, once again, realized as soon as she said that it was more than likely if she had a home, she wouldn’t be in the Commons alone in the first place. When had he become such a bumbling fool, or just felt like one, when talking to someone else? It was as if he was tongue-tied, overwhelmed by this ache spreading in his chest at the sight of her sorrow and bewilderment that he could feel so deeply for a mare he didn’t even know.
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