hold my hand, it's a long way down to the bottom of the river
She is tucked perfectly against the crook of his neck when Nevi comes back to find them, her shoulder pressed to the beating of his chest and her breath warm on his skin where whiskered lips trace pale pink scars. There was not a single day in her past where she had imagined her future would be so full. There had been too much loneliness, isolation forced by the way her thoughts wandered and the way her mind had a tendency to slip into places it shouldn’t be, places she wasn’t welcome. For three years the only family knew, the ones she had not hid herself from out of resentment, were the leaves in the trees and silver stars in a sky that threatened to consume her. She had known then that it was the life she deserved, the only one she deserved, and she had embraced it willingly.
Willingly, until war found Beqanna, until war found her. It had leaked into her thoughts, or maybe her thoughts had leaked inside it, but she had been blind with the fear that took root in her belly and chased her from the safety of those lonely in-between places she hid in. The empty spaces between kingdoms and herd lands, with no bodies and no thoughts to haunt her days. So she had run, until her bones were brittle and her heart had beat itself ragged within the confines of her chest. She had run until she couldn’t run anymore, until she had found solace in a patient stranger with worried red eyes who let her trace the stories of his scarred flesh so that she might forget her own scars in that instant.
Everything had changed then.
This life was more than she ever deserved.
She shifts to embrace Nevi when he joins them, leaving a gentle kiss against Offspring’s jaw before she pulls away, and then drapes her chin over the boys withers to draw him close against her chest where he can listen to the sound of a heart that loves him so. When he speaks she listens quietly, pushing aside his wispy forelock to press a kiss against the center of his forehead. But he says something that interrupts her easy silence, something that makes her hold him even closer, even tighter- something that flushes warmth through her veins and spills over in her heart.
Mom.
She is whole.
She listens to Nevi’s tale, her heart growing heavier and heavier in her chest until she can hardly breathe around the lump that has formed in her throat. When she lifts her head to turn to Offspring, there is no hesitation shared between them, no uncertainty as she places another kiss against that hollow imprint just above the corner of his mouth. Then, turning, “Oh Nevi, my little love, there is nothing you could ever ask of me that would be too much.” She drops her chin over his back again to give his shoulders a small squeeze. “And our family doesn’t have a limit, darling, please take us to where she is. She shouldn’t have to be alone. We don’t leave anyone behind, okay love?” She can see his expression waver, see the promise of tears in the tremble of his lip, so she presses kisses to the dark angles of an impossibly delicate face until she is certain the worry has gone.
They go then, with Isle and Offspring shoulder to shoulder and flank to flank, and Nevi leading them like a shepherd to the Den. She recognizes it immediately, flinching with renewed revulsion that such a place even existed at all, that anyone could leave a piece of themselves behind like this. A piece of their heart, of their soul.
He takes them to a place she remembers well, where old trees lean with broken backs and leaves so thick and knotted they blot out the sky. She notices the sleeping girl immediately and it is entirely reflexive when she approaches quietly, her face soft and worried. For a moment she hesitates though, her chest tightening, and remembers how Nevi had explained that she had run from him. So when she continues, closing the distance between them with quiet, easy strides, she doesn’t try to wake her immediately. Instead she reaches down to brush her forelock with gentle lips, pausing when she tastes the salt of stale tears, and then traces kisses along the crest of her dark neck. “You’re so wanted, little angel,” she whispers in a voice like wings against skin, “come home.”
And it does not matter if she rouses in time to catch those words, because when she opens her eyes to see the faces surrounding her, she will know their love. She will see the pain of yearning etched into Isle’s bay and white face, know that the brightness in her eyes matched an ache in her heart, a desire to hold this filly close against her chest so that the scars of being unwanted could start to heal.
Isle
