Though I have done my best to keep busy, there is no denying that I have failed. My attempts at recruiting had fallen on deaf ears, and while I am sure Raines is happy wherever she has settled, I am disappointed that it was not the Falls.

Texas had left one sunny afternoon for a jaunt t othe Meadow – or so he had said. I’ve not seen the bay stallion since, though the idea that he might have abandoned the kingdom does not sit well with me. Though we had spent many a long afternoon regaling each other with tales of the past (he had so many more than I), he had never shared anything that hinted that he might be a deserter.

Perhaps I had been wrong.

The sound of a summons rouses me from my single-minded trip around the border, and I stop with one front foot raised as I try to identify the caller. Ygritte, I decide, and not Texas. I respond with the same haste (prompt replies to kingdoms summons had been instilled in me even as a newborn), and I soon see the bay mare ahead of me, her salmon hair bright even against the autumn leaves.

“Ygritte,” I say, stretching out my pale muzzle toward her in greeting. We have not grown as close as Texas might have intended, but I find her friendly, and am sure that given times we might be friends. I had intended to say something pleasant, a greeting or a jest, but the seriousness in her expression makes it clear that now is no time for such things.

“I’ve not seen Texas in weeks,” I say instead, trying my best to keep the worry from my face. It works, I know, but there is uncertainty in my tenor voice that I cannot entirely hide. He is her father, I know, and while I have lost mine too, I at least knew where he had gone and was not left wondering. “Have you?”

Once, long ago when I was barely more than a weanling, my mother had told me about ruling a kingdom. She had loved it; that much was clear. It was something she had always wanted, something she had spent her entire life achieving, and once she had it, she worked even more, determined to best those that had come before her. I had never been possessed of those same desires (something that, I think, was even more a disappointment to my parents than my disability), and since that day hadn’t thought of ruling until Texas had brought it up again.

I’ve spent long months thinking about it now, wondering exactly what it was that the bay stallion saw in me that my own parents did not. Ygritte’s quip about the old man having an agenda rings starkly true; perhaps he had only wanted someone to take the burden from him. Perhaps I was just a placeholder until someone better came along.

Ygritte though…she is no placeholder.

She will make a fine queen, I know. She is gentle, but there is the same iron spirit inside of her that had fascinated me when I glimpsed it in Texas. This kingdom has always been a small one, but perhaps Ygritte can change that. Perhaps I can change it too.

“I think that it does not matter how I feel,” I reply with a smile that is more than a little wry. “I think that the old man’s planned his disappearance well. I think it’s time whether we want it to be or not.”

Had I known how different she felt, I’d have wondered at the lack of change in myself.

I feel the same as I did an hour ago. Confused, concerned, but certain that something needed to change, and that I should probably be the one to change it.

No…we. We should be the ones to change it. Ygritte and I. We will change the Falls.

When Texas and I had spoken, it had not been of war. We knew it was coming of course – war is always coming – but perhaps by not discussing it we had hoped to somehow delay the inevitable. The last Beqanna War had ended a few months before my older sister’s birth; I have only lived in a peaceful Beqanna but know that the idyllic world would never last.

Ygritte seems to feel the same, and when she brings up the fighting I respond with a wry smile. Of course, I think, we would have to make an important decision almost immediately after accepting the weight of our crowns. Isn’t that what my mother and father had said? Ruling was little more than a series of decisions.

“The Falls – you and I and Nairne, I suppose - should remain neutral. We have no stake in this war and have not been targeted by either side.” There is a small voice in my head, a voice that sound suspiciously like my disappointed father who feels that only coward do not fight, but I ignore it. I will not endanger this tiny kingdom that has only just been entrusted to me. “We should heal anyone that needs it, on the condition that there is to be no fighting in our kingdom.” Ygritte seems like a reasonable creature and is, hopefully, more compassionate than her sire.

With my opinion on kingdom matters finished, I feel that now is perhaps the time to bring up family. “I have a young son in the Deserts. I’d like to go and be sure he is safe, but I’ll return with haste in case I’m needed here.” I pause a moment, but it is clear from the way that I have already turned my body towards the east that I am anxious to go. The Desert is a major contender in this war, and the idea of Rome – and his mother – in danger is a very real threat.