So don’t leave me here on my own—

without you I’m so lost

I’m not ready to be a father.

I’m not—I can’t be a father.

These words—these fears—are all that echo in the stallion’s mind. For a moment—for several long, dreadful moments—they are all that he can comprehend. He doesn’t notice when the small mare shifts her weight forward, her apology drown out by the mess of emotions that knot and writhe beneath every surface of his body. For a moment, he only gives her silence—his mind screaming and howling out at her, at the world. Why?! He pleads, he demands, I’m not ready to be a father! Of this, he is certain. There are many titles he has worn graciously—warrior, explorer, lover, friend, enemy, idiot, fool—but father? No. That is a title he is not prepared willing to bear.

Her apologies and her pleads, they pass through him like ghosts, leaving him cold and distant. He seems to look past her, unfocused and detached, too consumed by his own horrors to care much for the turmoil that she bears herself. Finally, he manages movement—the slow flexing of his jaw, the heavy curling of his tongue, and the choked words that break woodenly from his lips. “How long…have you—?” known. It’s been months since that glorious fateful day, when he had been too captivated by long lashes and sparkling eyes to worry about the consequences.

Not that consequences have ever been much of a concern for the reckless stallion.

Her sudden touch startles him—

Rohan flinches when he feels her warmth against his cheek, recoiling for half a second before he gives in, falling almost wearily into her embrace. It is toxic, her proximity. The closer she presses herself to his chest, the more he forgets, and the more he craves. For too long he has been without her touch; for too long he has been without her smile; for too long…he has been without her. “Enna…” the stallion breathes, pulling her closer, wishing everything else away.

For a moment, everything is right again; but it is gone too quickly. That beautiful voice…her voice…forms words that cut through the silence, piercing through the warmth of his haze and dragging him back into the harshness of reality. Perhaps, at any other time, he would dare to ponder, dare to dream, about her confession of need for him—but he is too fixated on the bitterness of reality, of this responsibility that he doesn’t want. “Our…child,” he cries through gritted teeth, his deep voice more of a hiss as it is spit from his lips. Suddenly his body is cold, rigid, a statue that is frozen and unyielding against the mare’s tender heart.

“I…can’t—I’m—sorry, Enna,” his voice is strangled and almost pained, but clipped and firm in his defiance. “I—can’t,” he turns away from her, releasing their embrace and allowing the cold mists and dark shadows to spill into the empty space between them. If there wasn’t pride etched into every crevice of his character, there would be shame across his face, his body—a hurting and dishonorable shame. It is not an indignity he is unfamiliar with.

He is not an honest man—

She deserves better. Better than this arrogant twit that stands before her, too frightened to face his past, and too foolish to let it go.

With clenched jaws, he sighs heavily, antlered head refusing to fall to the obligation that threatens to overpower him. “It will be better off without me; you’ll…be better off without me,” his voice wavers, threatening to break and crumble and collapse; it is not the child that he mourns, but its mother. He needs her far more than he cares to admit—far more than he knows. Turning to face her, he manages to meet her eye squarely, a whisper of a smile ghosting along his lips, “You will make a great mother, darling.” This he does not doubt, and for a moment, the coldness cracks, and his smile widens—

—but it cannot last forever. Too soon those stone walls melt themselves back together, screaming at him fears truths that resonate into his very bones.

I’m not ready to be a father—!

The stallion’s ears pin back into the unruliness of his mane, a coldness washing again over his features, hardening the rugged lines in an attempt to drown out his terrors. Stiffly, he turns from her, instinctively curling his head into his chest defensively. “You’ll be better off without me,” it is said brokenly, painfully, vehemently.

It is for her own good.

“Speech.”

without you I’m so cold

rohan & enna