And I, I'm the carnival of peace - Fiero.

[Vineine]

***She has been fortunate. She has only ever known softness around the edges. Even the loss of her mother had been gentled by the discovery of Espie — standing unsteady on two-day legs, watching their mother return to the roots with confusion, nosing her stiff thigh in search of milk. She had been sheltered by the innocence afforded to her by her youth. Her mother had borne the grief of a lost child, the first; a lost love, the only. Vineine has lost only in ways that are still negotiable, like the friendship of a man, unencumbered by age; the departure from that floral land, always where she left it last… ***It is an odd thing that Vineine had not thought about her second parting from the Gates. Not at the time, when in the squalls of early snow she had left to abate that powerful wanderlust. But, she had not known for certain then. ***I had been made unavoidable in an enclave of maple trees. She picked at young grass and the buckskin colt lay nearby in green shade. The rosy mare had caught sight of it, only just, and turned to the lazing boy, ‘Trystane, come look.’ She whispered, as if they were sharing a great secret, and that alone caught his attention. He wobbled to her shoulder. ‘Look. A walking stick. See it?’ She motioned to the spindly bug. ‘A walking stick, mum?’ He squinted close at it. He had touched it, maybe… silly boy. He knew better. She had chastised him and returned to eating. ‘...Mum? Who is my papa?’ ***It had caught her off guard. More off guard than she thought it would. Maybe, because Viera had never asked (had she?), or because she thought when the time came it would be uncomplicated and clean. She had blinked over the colt’s shoulder as he watched the stick-bug move down the stalk of a blackberry plant. ‘Fiero, Trys.’ The boy had no more to say on the matter. Whether the man still remembers, she couldn’t say. ***A stick snaps somewhere, and the mare looks up through the gold light and moss shade. It echoes in the dawn quiet but she cannot tell from where it came. This place has a way of sucking in sound and reverberating it through bark and rock, until everything seems to share sound equally. She cranes her neck, ears flicking around for more — the muffled step of hooves, and Vineine turns back to meet his eyes. ***Autumnal flowers and a more homely copse of trees, but this is close and it kicks her in the gut. When he says her name she opens her mouth and then settles on a smile, taking a dainty step closer to him. She had not thought to find him when Trystane had been born… she had only known one of her mothers, and she had only ever been a lone provider. But she had wondered about him often. ***What she has never been able to tell him, of course, is that for whatever is left of her mortal wake, he occupies an indelible space in her mind. He gave her something most precious. ***And then he says it, and she looks down at the ground, squeezing her eyes shut. “I…” It is made worse by the absence of accusation or anger in his voice. He has every right. “How?” She finally forces out, soft and surpised. “I never meant to hold him from you, Fiero. I didn’t know… yet, when I left.” And she hadn’t thought… but she can’t say that. It has a bite, and she has been unfair enough. “He asked about you once…” She sighs, and looks back at him. He is the same handsome man she had known intimately years ago, and very similar to the one she had watched grow bigger than her, faster than she could bear. “There are still things left to teach him.” *magic-borne daughter of Prague and Elladora ****‘...Herself in the Heavens, her beam on the waves.’