Common

Sabah had last stepped foot in the Common four years ago, and she had left pregnant. She had been a naive two-year-old, freshly-bereaved and more than willing to fall for the first handsome face that had looked her way. The memories of that time were rose-tinted, filled with grass and sky and yellow flowers, with laughter, with green eyes fringed by pale eyelashes looking at her with wordless promise.

Today, the illusion was gone. Sabah could see only the brown of the dead leaves, the bare trees, and the mud from recent rains. She could feel only the itch of the patch of skin on her back that had been bothering her ever since the deluge — and then, as one stallion, then two appeared, she could feel whatever tiny spark of hope was left in her dissipate into the ether, replaced by a sense of disquiet in her gut. Men made her nervous, especially two of them.

Yet, she realized, as she glanced at the shorter stallion, whose golden body was marked with bold white, perhaps they were not both strangers. Something was familiar about that shorter stallion with the cocky grin. The odd sense of familiarity did not subdue her nerves, however, for there was something off about him — something in his posture, or the way his gaze flicked between them — that suggested he could be trouble.

Mismatched eyes flicking to the taller, darker stallion called Carthage, Sabah considered him for a moment. He seemed to carry a careful, smooth veneer that might just as well conceal untoward intentions — indeed, if the overo stallion was to be believed, that was the case. Sabah quickly decided she did not trust either of them. Had she encountered this pair the last time she'd visited the Common as a fresh two-year-old, she may well have fallen for one or both of their traps, but now it took everything in her not to turn tail and leave them in the mud to bicker over her.

"Um, actually, while you're both here, I might as well ask. I'm looking for a young stallion — he'd be about three years old now — about my height, with a silver-gold coat. He's called Abraxas, but goes by Brax. I don't suppose he sounds familiar at all…?" She trailed off, biting at her lower lip. She had rehearsed the speech so often over the past year that the words came stilted, like teeth that did not want to be pulled.

Perhaps, one day, she would no longer need to use it.