You're a queen and I'm a lion-heart

Story of your life so far: you feel very prepared for things, and then the things happen, and it turns out you are miserably, desperately, thoroughly out of your depth - but you do your best, and that's what matters, right?

You nod, remembering that night. You were distraught in the wake of you mother's disappearance, convinced you'd reached your pinnacle of unhappiness and suffering (HA), and so you sought her out, your friend, your Isopia. She hadn't told you what was wrong then, and you'd let her get away with it, but you knew. You were just too selfish, too busy, too caught up in your own experiences to ask about it. If you had, well... that doesn't matter now, does it?

"It was a baby. I was pregnant."

What. What?! You stare, momentarily dumbfounded, your mouth hanging open and your sunbeam eyes wide. Iso, pregnant?! How? Who? You've never heard Iso talk about having another guy in her life, and for a moment that hot spike of jealousy spears you again. Is he bigger than you? Stronger? Well-spoken and flawless, handsome, a fighter? Is he... tall? You move past this train of thought quickly, though, because there are more important things- namely, this baby. The idea of Isopia as a mother is flabbergasting. One the one hand, you're both still children, barely more than newly born yourselves. On the other hand...

You think Iso would be a great Ma.

So what happened? you want to ask, but you hold your tongue, waiting for the entirety of Isopia's sordid tale to make its way into the open. As she talks about the father ("She hates him", a terrible part of your mind is happy to conclude, but you quickly bite it back and push it down, far too sad at this point to let petty things like jealousy get in the way) and a fight and... and... killing it, you realize you're already way out of your depth. You have no words, no joke or remark or even smile, nothing that will save your friend from this. It's only when she remarks on two fillies digging up the bones that you have any amount of physical response, your eyes widening even further and your body flinching as deep suspicion bites at your toes. You're fairly familiar with a pair of fillies who like to dig up bones, after all.

FUCK.

She finally stops, and you feel like time is crawling, seconds making their lazy way across the world like ants. You can feel every beat of your thundering heart, every firing of your overacting neurons. You have a million feelings and a thousand questions. How could she? Why? When? Who? Why didn't she tell you before, when maybe you could've helped?

Did she love him? (Which him?)

How could she?

How could she, Isopia, your knowledgeable and curious friend, have done this? You always believed in her wisdom, her strange yet steadfast understanding of the world. How could she have made a mistake so monumental?

But you've made mistakes too, haven't you, Zèklè?

Slowly, so slowly, your silver eyes rise to meet her gold ones. She's covered in earth, her protective barriers of the world sturdy and tall. She's more earth than mare, now, shielded by the world her father created, and yet to you she has never been more vulnerable, more alive. Part of you, still dreadfully scandalized, wants to condemn her. To be moralistic and mighty, to cast what you would have done upon her like a stone, to make her understand - but it's you who doesn't understand, you who needs placating, not her. What does she need, Zero, and are you strong enough to provide it?

You don't know. But you're brave enough to try.

You step forward, one, two, closing the gap between you and throwing yourself against her. Your wing comes up to wrap across her withers, your head presses against her neck - "I'm so sorry, Iso," you whisper fiercely against her neck, because you are sorry, sorry that things have been so hard for both of you, sorry you couldn't save each other, sorry for even the moments of judgment and condemnation you'd felt, sorry for being selfish, sorry she ever felt she had to go through this alone.

Sorry because you know you cannot heal her pain, only offer to carry some of it for a while.

"I love you," you tell her, because you do- you love her fiercely, powerfully, with every fiber of your being and every string of your heart. You love her with the love of a child, a love untainted by sex and lust and greed - you love her because she is part of you, a piece of your soul, and no matter what she says or does, that can never change.