Her lips twitch in amusement as Brazen makes her displeasure known too. Her blue gaze settles on the red and white filly for a moment as she snuggles closer to her father. It’s strange almost, to know such contentment. She knows it cannot last, but for the first time in her life she understands why so many seek out this very thing. She hadn’t thought it in her nature, had thought herself so immune.
She should know better, of course. A foible of hers, it seems, to be so willfully ignorant of her own heart.
It’s surprisingly easy to lose herself in the moment. To forget for a time that there is so much happening beyond the relatively safe confines of their tiny haven here. Until reality intrudes with the arrival of Briella. First she knows relief. Ether had found her. Had brought her home. Then concern. Because Briella has grown. Too rapidly.
“Briella,” she says softly, her concern evident. No matter how she’d felt when Dovev had brought her to Nerine, she had grown to greatly care for her. Had come to think of her as hers as much as she is Dovev’s. They had spent too much time together not to, the chestnut filly alongside her as the twins had grown within her. Their relation might not be of blood, but she is hers as much as these children are.
It takes her no more than a moment to reach out, to see. But it does not assuage her concerns. The void that had swallowed her those many, many years ago had left its mark. Something Heartfire, for all her ability, could do very little about. “You’re growing,” she finally says, answering the confusion she had expressed. It is not a whole answer, but Heartfire can think of no better explanation. She is growing too fast. But then, it is a strange magic that had deposited her here.
She is distracted however, when Brazen speaks. Her blue gaze jumps to her daughter’s sweet little face. “I am Brazen,” she says, a little frown marking her features, before she continues in a mutter, “Ynctlios. Nyctlios.” She shakes her head then, before a grin brightens her face. “Lio!” She falls silent for a moment then.
“Brazen?” Heartfire asks softly, concerned.
“We’re not fighting,” she insists, causing a frown to tug at Heartfire’s features as well. She reaches forward, touches her daughter’s shoulder as she stretches her sight. Nothing. Only them, here and now. She digs deeper, until she catches glimpses of a cave, the ocean. A beach that belongs to neither the island or Nerine.
Brazen’s gaze jumps to her, and she smiles broadly, blue eyes clear and bright. “Momma and Daddy,” she announces proudly then, before settling against Dovev with a soft sigh. “Tired.”
The blue and white mare stares at her, impossibly still for a moment, mind clicking over the possibilities. She casts her sight out, seeking for several long moments. Until it becomes clear there is no immediate danger. That whatever had done this to her daughter is not close, nor immediately apparent. “Brazen,” she says again, more firmly. “Who are you talking to?”
She blinks sleepily at her, blithely unaware. “Lio,” she mumbles. “Lio is… friend.” She sighs, eyes drooping as she tucks her head against Dovev’s knee and closes her eyes. Heartfire’s features still as she turns her gaze to the bone-armored stallion, saying nothing further.
i see your sins
and i want to set them free
