There was a mental net he found himself entangled in; how could he possibly choose one over another? He could not even decide on a land to live, not truly. He loved the Pampas and Ischia both, and sometimes he wondered if he hadn’t stayed with Noah out of sheer stubbornness and later, protectiveness for the sort of peace and quiet she had created.

The water provides an easy break. Instead of north, the lone white dolphin swims towards the other side of the Pampas, to the forest and riverlands. He doesn’t seem to be thinking a lot, or maybe it is too much so that he doesn’t take note of where he goes; it doesn’t matter to him in the moment as he weighs the pros and cons and doesn’t see his solution just yet.

But after such a time in the silence of the deeper water and the un-frequented river, he decides he can just enjoy the distraction of walking and meeting someone - or meeting critters, it’s not that important. The dolphin peeks out of the water, and upon spotting movement deeper into the forest, slides onto the shore. A quick second glance reveals a horse-like shape, so that’s the shape he takes as well - fully white save for the metallic golden spots and emerald green eyes; his conformation baroque, though not purebred. The stallion is in the prime of his life for an ordinary wild horse - but he will never deteriorate, since he can alter his form.

The horse already moved deeper into the forest, and he breaks into a light trot. Even if he can’t find them again, he thinks, he might still see something of the spring coming back to the lands.

He must be in luck - the mare before him has light coloration, a misty-wooden smell and most of all, does not move very fast. When he slows down because he nears her, she finally seems to notice his presence - but it’s her voice and then her face, that truly makes him come to a standstill.

”Mom?”

What is she doing here?

from the ashes a fire shall be woken

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck… but she sounds weird, doesn’t quack like the same duck. It is her voice, he is certain, just as he knows her scent. How could one forget their mother’s scent? But she… she doesn’t know his. How does one forget her son’s scent?

He shrinks before her eyes; literally. She is so cold, so distant, and she doesn’t recognize him, that it almost affects him instantly. Both subconsciously and consciously, his shape is altered to what it once was. Younger, smaller, his voice pitched a bit higher - a 6 month old colt, staring at his mother-with-a-different-name with uncertain, hurtful, wide eyes: trying to appeal to her still, trying to understand what happened, and why she doesn’t want to be his mother any more. ”You left us with dad when I was this small. He said you needed space and I believed it. Maybe he did too? Where you Roz back then too? Have you seen Oisín and Eurwen? Or Ilan?”

But his questions are hopeless attempts; if she can’t remember him, nor his siblings or his dad, then all of this is futile and he will not get any answers. The spotted knabstrup hybrid bites his lower lip, seeing that his questions are not helping him in the slightest; stepping back a little to stay out of her reach as if she’s not the one he knows, as if she is indeed a stranger who is about to attack him (at this point nothing is certain) he tries something else. ”Where’d you get Breckins shells and feathers… Roz, you said? Did you… did you kill my mother?” As if he now believes she got possessed, or maybe this is an evil twin of his mothers’, who’d taken her trinkets from her. It’s not right, but maybe, just maybe, if she is the same person as she was before, then deep down she will feel guilty for leaving? Mother always was so kind and caring, maybe some of it is left? Could she not feel guilty or sorry for lying to his face about not being his mother? For being this… Roz person in her stead?

And what if she is an evil twin? What can he do then?

from the ashes a fire shall be woken

There is little he understands about this mare before him, and less so with each word she speaks. Through his earlier rambling, he had not noticed any of her facial micro-expressions, and her words land harder than she probably uttered them in the first place. I am no mother.

He stares, hardly registering most of what comes next. His earlier, defiant statements brought from her naught but more denial. She uses reasoning which he knows somewhere, somehow, to be flawed, to be wrong - but the logic of her statements and the belief with which she brings them, bring forth a wave of immobilizing fear as cold as the waters that surround his birth home. And it is that wave that drowns the fire inside him for a moment. He shakes his head - they’re Nerinian trinkets, at least that’s what he'd always thought - but he can’t be sure. She had never told him where she was from, and he’d never asked. His father had told some stories of his youth - perhaps as a bit of a warning not to be as stupid as he, but still - but he doesn’t remember his mother doing that. She never told of her youth, or where she came from, be that Beqanna or elsewhere.

In the moment, he doesn’t come to the conclusion that she might not have remembered; but right now all he can do is shrink and shake his head. He feels tiny beneath her gaze. She might not be Breckin after all, might not be a mother like she says. How could any mother be so cold, so distant?

He tries to hope for something - her scent is similar, if not the same. ”You’re certain you don’t have a twin sister?” he pipes up - but the look in her eye is enough.

It’s hopeless, whatever this is. His mother is not present.

Not any more, at least.

from the ashes a fire shall be woken