I must surely look a mess as I stand before her, tears coursing down my face, covered in dirt from the wall, and ever-so-slightly too fat, just large enough, really, to have to ask if I'm pregnant. To many, I probably just look as though I have let myself go, and who could blame me if I had? It would have been easier, for certain, though any who know me would know it to be untrue. Working on the wall is no easy task - when have I had time to get fat and complacent? But it is something to guard against the pain of losing both my foal and my mate, though I do not know the latter is for certain. Does that make my sins worse, to have done it when he may never come home, when I may never greet him as my love again, when he may have died as a soldier on a battlefield as I found comfort in another steed?

I do not think my thoughts make much sense anymore.

I focus instead on my dear friend's face, finding her emotions much easier to handle than my own. First there is guilt, for surely she thinks that she had offended me, but then it turns to shock. Somehow this is more painful than all the rest - that I, the innocent, naive Sohalia, so worried about her first mating - gods, was that only a few seasons ago? - would be the adulterous whore of the Dragon's Throat, pregnant not even a season after my first foal's death. Oh, how wonderful I must sound, to bring a look like that to the face of a fae known to be a flirt and a tease and all manner of other horrid names - not that I think of her that way, you know, but one does hear stories.

But then I cannot watch anymore, for I have buried my face into her mane. It is easier than seeing the judgment in her eyes, though I know it is placed there by my own imagination. Her words, though soothing, do not particularly help to heal my shattered soul, and against my wishes I find myself thinking of Gaucho's embrace, of how whole I had felt with him, for the first time in ages... no, no, I must not think of that, I must not allow myself to want him! No, it is wrong, it is wrong, it is wrong... My sobs come harder for a moment, but dwindle with the sudden disappearance of Phaedra's nape. I look at her pleadingly, hoping for answers, hoping for release, hoping for anything to get me out of this mess.

"They... (sniffle)... they're both bay, a little difference in... (sniff)... how dark they are, but... oh, what does it even matter, Phaedra, I don't even know if Note is coming back!" I wail, inconsolable. I want so badly to confide in her, to tell her how Gaucho made me feel, both before it happened and during, but I cannot bear to admit the feelings. Admitting them would make them real. And they cannot be real. "I haven't seen him or heard from him and... (sniff)... I don't think anyone else has either, and..." I choke, horror rushing into my gaze. "What if he saw me?! What if that's why he left, what if he left because of me, and now Skysong has no father, and- and-" I fall again into relentless tears.

"talk talk talk"

Live... I want to live on fire
Die... I want to burn out brighter
Brighter than the northern lights
Want to live to feel the daylight