everything we are, it just went away
with a slide of the tongue and a sour taste
By the time negotiations in the Cove are finished, and things are settled – she might be a Queen! Her! – she is exhausted, but determined. Ilma has bid them go to Hyaline, to acquaint themselves with Amet and Kensa, and she knows that it will be an easy enough task, but the mere idea is daunting and she has to swallow back her discomfort as they set out together. She had not realized that her twins were so close to being born, but with all this pain, it must be soon. It has to be soon. She doesn’t think she could be more miserable if she tried.
And trust me, she’s tried.
Clayton meets her eye, and expresses the same thing she’d been thinking herself. “I am, too,” she says with an airy laugh, the corners of her lips quirking up in a smile. “It seems like just yesterday we were playing together in the Playground, Sunny and us. Well, Rhaegor. I didn’t know back then that he was a prince, and look at us now! We might be a King and Queen within the year.” She shakes her head in disbelief as they cross the border to Hyaline, and draws in a deep breath as she remembers the half a year she spent here before the contagion struck. She had not spent her entire life here, like some of them, but it still feels like home.
They stop, and Clayton glances at her with a smile, but she sees the worry behind his eyes. “I’m alright,” she assures him. “I’m not the first mare to ever be pregnant, you know.”
Amet appears moments afterwards and greets them, and Dawn smiles at the now-familiar face. “It’s good to be back in Hyaline,” she tells him, glancing around at the familiar territory. He suggests they go to the lake, and she brightens at that, eager to dip her toes in the icy waters that her bear enjoys so much. “Oh, I’ve missed that lake,” she sighs, and the foals inside her wriggle and squirm as if they, too, already want to experience the waters.
“So,” she continues, eyes bright as she looks to Amet as they walk. “How do things fair in Hyaline? Was the changing of hands peaceful? Litotes seemed... agitated last I saw him, in Loess.”
And she’ll leave it at that. They don’t need to know that he sired her children.
Dawn
oh, it's gonna be a long night