Common

She wasn't sure when she had become so guarded. There was a time, as a girl, when she had been so eager for love and adventure that she'd been actively looking for someone to sweep her off her feet. She'd gone to the Commons despite Roisin's best attempts to counsel her against such a course of action, and had believed herself lucky when she found Sigurdr. He was handsome and charming and so eager to fill her ears with promises of the exact sort of future she'd always dreamed of for herself.

And so when he'd disappeared the first time, leaving her behind to fend for herself when the next claimant came, she had believed it to be an accident. A simple mistake. Sure, her pride had taken a severe wounding when he hadn't even recognized her in the Commons when he'd finally returned, but she had still been so unbearably hopeful that she'd gone ahead and asked him for a child of her own, believing that the existence of their little girl might be enough glue to keep him.

Only that hadn't worked, either.

And now her daughter's life was even more fractured than her own, which was a fate she would have never wished upon anyone.

The silvery stallion continues to try and draw her from her shell as if he hadn't - thus far - composed himself as the sort of brute that would force her to go with him anyway. It's a strange mix of softness and cruelty, and she is not sure what to make of it. His nearness to her daughter - and her daughter's apparent like of him - both put her on edge. As he reaches for the girl, her whole body stiffens and her ears flatten against her poll. Such a thing was rare for the mild-mannered little mare, though Annubis wouldn't know that of course.

Promise, for her part, giggled in delight at his touch, though the sound died a little as she registered her momma's discomfort. Again, she touched her knee, wishing she could show her momma that it was going to be okay. They were going home together, back to the flowers and the jungle, where the air was (mostly) sweet and the world a vibrant green rather than this bitter cold. Her attempts at comfort, however, were quickly abandoned at the mere mention of a race against a new opponent. Her petite head was thrust upward as she half-reared, prancing in a circle with eagerness even as her mother deliberated.

"I can't exactly speak if I am running," Hymn groused, snapping her tail against her haunches. She felt a bit foolish playing beneath the watchful gaze of the silver stallion, but Promise's happiness was all that truly mattered to her. And while it might not be wise for Promise to like, let alone trust, Annubis, there was a part of her momma's heart that so dearly wanted her baby girl to have the father she'd never gotten to experience. And it was this part of her, this longing, that eventually got her feet into motion as she lipped at her daughter's shoulder, cast a glance at the silvery stallion, and then began to re-trace her steps toward the ocean at a lope.