For a while she is lost to the ambience, feeling relaxed for the first time in ages. The boys are off adventuring as colt are wont to do, likely alongside the pair of fillies they'd befriended. That would lead to eventual trouble she was sure, but for now all seemed harmless. She had drunk from the river and grazed on meadowsweet, all in all spent a rather pleasant day on her own. In a flush of enthusiasm she had even spent a little time rebuilding the willow shelter, training branches to thread together into a lacy curve. It was a strangely satisfactory task, cleaning up the place.
There is a sloshing of legs through water, a singed odor reaching her that is not all together surprising. The boys liked checking in on her periodically, and more and more frequently the scent of smoke clung to her winged son's skin. It was familiar and sometimes comforting, but today she had meant it when she had said to let her be. "Tana, I told you both that I'm fine, I'll be--"
Sabra?
Her feet had been carrying her around to chide the boys, but it was not their adolescent voices who responded. Now they rooted her to the sandy bank facing the one who had appeared. She had not forgotten his face. How could she, when she saw it daily in their sons? With a rush of air, her lungs remembered their function. Haloed in warm sunlight, dripping from his recent contact with the river, Castile stood staring at her with an expression that struck her to the core.
Every line, every marking, was the same. It was as though it had only been yesterday that she'd last seen him, not the two years it really had been. While she looked... thin. She had not recovered all the weight she had lost the last year, though her ribs no longer stood out. Her mane and tail were far shorter, the tips only just beginning to darken to their customary crimson. She was being swallowed up by his gaze and felt entirely unworthy. "Castile. Cas. You're alive, and... You're here." The pale mare did not know what to think, let alone feel. Anger, abandoment, understanding, relief, love. It was a violent storm of emotions within her that needed to come out.
"What in the absolute hell are you doing here?! Do you know how much time has passed? How much you've missed? I've missed you, and I've spent gods know how many nights wondering what I did wrong... what I could have done, you make you leave." Anger, check. Abandoment, check. She was going to forgive him. She knew that as soon as she saw him. But anger had to be known and expressed. As quickly as it had flared it died back down, leaving her closer than she'd planned to be to his solid form. Her feet never paid her any mind when he was near, always fighting to be close to him. Even when she wanted to be angry, it couldn't live for long. Another step and he could touch her if he wanted to. She looked him over more thoroughly, taking in everything. "Are you alright? Dammit, Castile, I've been worried sick about you. I thought you had died. And the boys..." a colourful curse was uttered under her breath. He didn't know about the boys. There's no way he could have known about them, or that she had conceived in the first place. She had wanted to, had loved the idea of bearing his foals. Little had she known the cost. Indeed, that had long been the thought she'd held, that once she'd given him herself, his interest had waned to nonexistence. That thought had hurt more than she'd figured possible.
It was difficult coaching herself into quiet, to let him breath and respond. Her emotions were hers, and she knew deep down, that this was what it was to love a wild thing. This was what she'd agreed to. She only wished for a little more warning. Two years was a long time, yet still her heart was soaring to be near him. No others had captured her attention in the time he'd been gone. There was no one else quite like Castile.
SABRA
I'm Hell on Heels, Say What You Will
@[Castile] have emotions!!