The bay paint stood alone on the beach, her dark nostrils quivering as the mare lifted her nose into the salty air. Her eyes closed, passing back and forth beneath her eyelids as Vogue mulled thoughtfully over every particle that washed through her senses. It predominantly consisted of saltwater, whispers of horseflesh, and even fainter traces of something she could not name. The mare's dark mouth puckered into a disappointed frown, and then her eyes opened once more.
From here on the southern strand of the Meadow, Vogue was as close as she could get to the Lagoon without crossing into the Commons. She belonged to the Peak now, and, while she thought that status could keep others from setting their sights on her, the tobiano dared not set hoof there, despite her growing discontent. Her bright eyes lingered on the shape of the Lagoon in the distance. Despair and anger festered in her heart.
The Lagoon had been her home twice before: a paradise at first and then little more than a makeshift excuse for a home. All four of her children had been born beneath the kaleidoscopic boughs of rainbow eucalyptus trees, played in the mud, and danced in the shallows of the outer bay. They had been the source of her joy, and the whims of Lagoon and Peak alike had tossed and snatched at Vogue and her brood like a scattered game of jacks.
The bay had come to accept her lot in the Lagoon: wandering the tropics, avoiding the men (save Khyber from time to time), and raising her boys. Vogue had never expected to see her eldest daughter Dior return; they'd parted ways when the girl had chosen to find a suitor and herd for herself. Vogue wished then that Dior had not stayed behind to look for her when her claimer left the islands. Despite what had been happening during her tenure in the Peak, it was on Dior that Vogue's mind tended to stick. Dior and that lizard who'd taken advantage of Versace.
Vogue pawed anxiously at the ground beneath her hooves, carving one divot through the loose sand after another. Dior: captured. Versace: icing her out for keeping "it," the colt Salvatore whom she'd brought into the world. Luxor: likely thriving in the Lagoon. Khorvaire: wandering off the islands to find himself outside of the Lagoon's grasp, and Salvatore, her grandson, who had gone with him. Every name, a child she'd not been able to protect from the world. All she wanted now was for her family to be freely together, but how?
VOGUE
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Brotherly Love - By TattooJanuary 28, 2026 at 08:14:04 PM