They will not see eye to eye on this, she knows as he reiterates his stance. How long had duty bound him, how little she wanted to simply be another obligation. Her head shook in bewildered distress as he pressed his point.
He'd always been so good at creating the life he wanted for himself. Playing pretend when it suited him and luring the willing into his own version of reality until something better suited him. It was a fantasy, and she'd spent as much of her life inside it as out.
It was shock she felt though, when he spoke next. Shock and pain and confusion as she tried to process the implications of what he described. "How does he stand it?" She whispered at last, looking to the winged stallion as if she'd find some vital clue in his face. "Is he not enough to satisfy you, and he is sane knowing it? He has your heart and I'm just a convenient broodmare to raise your children? What is it, Pteron?"
Just like that, the scars she'd fostered on her heart ripped free, the bloody wound of abandonment and betrayal stinging out in the open again. She'd thought she'd grown, that she'd somehow gotten wiser. All it took was a charming smile and a sweet word and she was proven wrong. She was the same silly sea horse that had fallen head over tail for him years ago, and wanted nothing more than to be enough for him to love.
Fins laid down across her shoulders, she let herself move back into his gravity again. Kept her eyes on his own while she begged silently for strength.
"Tell me," she pleaded softly. "Tell me that after all of these years, that some part of your heart is mine. That you love me because I'm me, not just as the mother of your children." She winced at the thoughts reeling in her head, at the sheer weight of her heart in the moment. "I don't want to believe that you would risk your relationship with Aegean over someone you didn't love. And-" she looked away, dulled with the tidal emotions that had overtaken the hour.
"I don't want to believe that I was just a close enough resemblance to him that you felt you could practice on me before moving on to the real thing." It was a bitter admission, but it was the thought that had plagued her since meeting the white stallion.
@[Pteron] okay well this is very dialog heavy, I'm sorry :/