She half expected to see Sigurdr waiting on the Shore for her. Perhaps he'd be disappointed she'd left. Or perhaps he'd simply forgotten about her again.Either way, she could not stop her gaze from searching the treeline rapidly as her hooves touched down. Nothing was there, of course, and she knew better than to have hoped.

Promise swam before her, her little rump pressed up against Hymn's chest until she, too, could touch the bottom. The race and then swim had tired the girl out and much of her initial enthusiasm was dampened as she finished clambering ashore, though she still wore a grin and peered contentedly at her birth home. Hymn smiled tiredly and touched her hip fondly, sharing a proud look with her daughter before the reality of why they were back home pressed in around her again.

She hadn't answered his question in the Commons. The option of a race (and the excuse to duck the why) had been too appealing for her to slow enough to explain her past stupidity. Now that they were here, however, the eternity of the unknown forever waited. How long would Annubis remain before he disappeared? Would it be long enough for her to find some fondness for him? For her to fall in love with him, have a child, envision herself happy? Or would he, too, make promises and then never keep them?

The tobiano mare shook herself off and glanced back for the silvery stallion, her gaze still guarded. Silence yawned between them for a moment and she considered letting it stretch into forever, forcing him to initiate again and again and again. But that would not be fair, she knew. It was not Annubis' fault that Sigurdr had left. And it was not his fault that Promise was alone. If she wanted her future to be happy, she had to make it so.

No more hiding in the jungle.

"Sigurdr." She said simply, internally wincing as her daughter peered up at her, half-curious, half-hopeful. "He is the reason I - we are here." She wasn't sure she really wanted to elaborate on her foolishness with the whole situation, given that she didn't want Promise to think poorly of her father. "But I was born on Atlantis, too." Her gaze flicked to the silver stallion briefly, wondering if he'd known anything about the mute mare that had been kept captive in the shadows. Lyrae hadn't exactly spoken to anyone, and Hymn had been little when they'd been freed to go to the Peak.

It struck her that Annubis might be the son of the same stallion that had held her mother captive, but she found herself reluctant to ask. "I'd tell you more but they aren't great stories."

Promise peered up at her mother, a grin on her lips despite the growing tiredness in her eyes. "But what about my dad? You came back for him, right?" Her daughter's eagerness to help tell the story, unaware of what dangers it might pose, made Hymn's heart clench again. She nodded in answer though, smoothing her muzzle along the girl's crest in the way that always made her sleepy. "Yes. I did come back for him, and that's how you came to be," she teased fondly, flicking a gaze briefly toward the silver stallion.

"But your dad had other things to do." She hedged as she had since the girl was born, grasping at straws to explain his absence. "So now we gets'to be here with 'Nubis," Promise finished brightly, leaning her damp frame against her mother. The girl, at least, was pleased by this turn of events. Hymn had nothing else to offer to this proclamation other than a quiet, anxious hum of affirmation.