A shaky breath was all she could muster at first. It ballooned past her throat unwillingly, painfully, ending in a hiccup that squeezed her heart. The worry in his eyes was physically painful to her, a concern she felt would dissolve into hatred the moment he knew the truth. Could she lie?
The thought swam temptingly before her, a ray of hope that she might spare herself this one more stone. That she might spare him the weight of her guilt. The falsehood tasted like tar on her tongue, bitter and heavy.
"They're gone,"
The words were not the ones she meant to say. She choked on them, gasped, and let her mouth snap shut again as if that would reel them back in. Hot liquid pooled in her eyes, distorting the stallion's face to a watery blur of gold and black. With furious blinks he was brought back into focus. The down side of which was that she could again see the gentle concern in his eyes.
There was a few stuttering breaths between them while she gathered herself, her expression distant as if she were the one lost, and not the children they had made together. Children he did not even know yet existed. So start there, she decided, figuring the beginning was the best place to start most things.
"I'm so sorry, Warbird. I should have known better but-" her throat tightened painfully. "But I was lonely, so lonely, and you were there! I didn't think... I guess that's all, really, I didn't think. But we made foals. Twins. They're beautiful, and perfect. And now they're missing." Shining, silent tears tracked down her cheeks as she spoke, the last words barely audible.
That he was here at all was a complication she'd pretended not to anticipate, but now it seemed only right that she pay for keeping the twins to herself this way. Now neither of them had the children, and she knew there was only herself to blame.
@[Warbird]