The soft sound of his voice as he nearly sounds timid is another first for Izumi. Stallions were harsh, demanding, commanding, and heartless. Either he was very good at pretending, or this was real. It was hard for the painted filly to believe it was true, but her heart yearned for it. Words choked up in her throat momentarily, several things wanting to blurt their way out, but fighting for which one came out first. So, with flushed cheeks, she looked away again.


“I didn’t think a place like this existed.” She replied softly. “I thought…..” No, her words fall away before she could finish. It didn’t matter what she had thought, when this might very well be her reality. If only her mother could live here too. The warmth of the sun on her back, her legs clean of the mud, and the fear that kept them quiet and sulking through the shadows gone. To lounge in the sunshine, the soft sand caressing their sides as they dozed in happiness. To let Himari finally run and find her freedom that she had never experienced before. Izumi had been so young, she hardly recalled that part of her life before they were taken to the Lagoon.


“I miss my family.” She confessed. “They would have loved a place like this.” Not realizing that she had confessed in a roundabout way that she loved it here too.