Common

The Commons is as busy as Hymn expects it to be, given the season. From her (albeit limited) experience, autumn always brought the hopeful mares and stallions out in droves. Perhaps it was hormones that spurred them onward, but Hymn preferred to believe that it was something closer to hope. That it was a sense of purpose and creation that came with autumn that inspired her brethren to similarly seek out homes.

Hymn lacked any such purpose herself. She supposed she should be lamenting Sigurdr's final disappearance more, but there was a sick part of her that was almost relieved to be free after being abandoned. A sort of freedom that came with being unchained to the stallion that had not only forgotten her very existence, but had made such sweet promises before leaving her to raise her first child all alone. It was hard not being bitter, but Hymn was working on it. She didn't want to hold that ugliness in her chest any longer than she had to, and she didn't want to lay her head down at night in the same place where he was likely to return to years later, likely having forgotten all about her all over again.

Before her, Promise perked up suddenly, her slender body going rigid as she locked onto something. Worried, the tobiano mare's gaze immediately tracked forward until she spotted the massive black stallion headed their way. A trill of fear raced through her chest, but she refused to be cowed. Hymn knew enough to know the dangers of the commons, but it had not steered her wrong yet… really. She'd chosen incorrectly the first time she'd come, and gotten unlucky the second, but she had never been forced anywhere or threatened or harmed in any capacity.

Besides, while she knew better than to fully trust first impressions, he seemed kind enough as he approached, even going so far as to drop his head as to appear less threatening. The weanling filly that had been so eager moments before, quailed in the presence of a stranger and circled back to tuck tightly against her mother's side, peering out at him with wide, curious eyes. She hadn't had much exposure to anyone other than her mother thus far, and she wasn't quite sure what to do with herself.

Hymn's maw had opened to respond to them when the fast approach of another stallion curtailed her words. There was purpose on this stallion's face, though Hymn could not rightly tell if it was good or ill-intended and she shifted to push the weanling further back, so that should there be any blows, they would land on her body rather than Promise's.

"I don't know you," Hymn answered carefully, suddenly regretting her choice of venue. "And he has just as much right to approach as you do," she said evenly, even though her heart was hammering. She wasn't sure if it would be wiser to simply go with the silver-coated stallion that smelled of Atlantis, or if she should try to encourage the black brute that had seemed gentlemanly. She had a feeling that if she did not go immediately with the man who presumed to have a claim over her, he would only continue to press his luck. He reminded her, in a way, of the mysterious stallion her mother had kept her hidden from in Paradise when they'd been held captive, not that she had understood that at the time. It wasn't until she was older and Roisin had explained it to her that she had understood that Rougaru was not her father, nor any friend of theirs. Encouraging the Percheron might only draw out her plight, rather than saving her from it.

She chewed on the inside of her cheek while she tried to quickly debate the options. Promise, barely a weanling and not used to strangers, stared up at the silvery form of her great uncle with uncertainty but definite curiosity, her bright eyes tracking every exchange. "Is one of them my dad?" She stage-whispered to her mother, earning a choked-off sound of shock from her mother as she turned her head to deny it to her daughter with a shake of her head. Sigurdr, wherever he was, was not coming back. He hadn't even bothered to meet his daughter, let alone to let her know what he looked like. Sounded like. Acted like. She knew not a single bit of what it was like to play with a father, let alone siblings, and Hymn realized that the sooner she rectified that, the better off her daughter would be.

She didn't want Promise to grow up the way she had.

There was no point dragging this out. And perhaps with the most fire the little mare had ever possessed in her life, and with no small amount of trepidation, she eyed both stallions equally, her dark chin lifted. "I don't know. Are either of you father material?"