And if I fell, would you be there to catch me?
Ilma
The white mare wanders the mountain snows; the packed ice flakes cracking underneath her hoofs, her visage shortened by the blinding white of the once-green mountainside.
She’s not too far off - she can be seen, she can be heard, unlike the past months. She remembers stepping out of that comfortable rock embrace to meet two new recruits, Briseis and later Baltas. But apart from those exceptions, she’s escaped her own thoughts through flight, tracing the night sky, forgetting the smell that she sometimes wakes up to, clinging to her nostrils after another bad dream.
Some nights Kagerus calms her dreams - often times she is occupied with the other pegasus in the kingdom. She does not blame her friend; Ilma is not her lover, not as close as one of that tight bond, not her queen. She knows that Solace needs her more, or perhaps, in a different way.
They have something else in common; pregnancy has grounded Ilma a second time, though this time not of her liking. Like Solace she has grown sideways and down, a belly heavy enough to reveal that she is bearing life.
She remembers the father - had hoped for so much more. Yes, a baby, in due time; but a father who would be present, who would love his son or daughter, a man who would love her or at the very least care for her. All those things, a mare could wish for, but so far she hadn’t gotten any.
And the worst part is that it’s not the first time either. Ashhal had never showed himself afterwards. She wonders if he knows he has a daughter.
Her wishes go ungranted, of course. They always do. Her daughter is a little star, a shadow of hope - a shooting star that unfortunaly could not grant Ilma’s wish for a more stable relation, but that instead fixes a little something between Hyaline and Nerine. Now when she tried to forge perhaps a bond with him, that backfired when apparently he could not contain his... what was it, lust? What drove him, she does not fully understand. He had not taken the time to explain either, of course. The wondering wolf had left the scene soon as he’d gotten what he wanted.
It doesn’t matter now. The child is hers, not his, and never has to know as far as she’s concerned. No-one needs to know. She can keep her secret, even if it burns and eats away everything inside. Unless - well unless Kagerus has told the twins already, of course. But even Kagerus doesn’t now the details.
don't let the fear of flying stop you from falling