...and I'm home - Sochi, anyone

[sochi]

Sochi remembers the pale mare’s reluctance to leave her own daughter in Nerine, in part because she was worried about the supervision. It had been a strange thought for the little black mare, even then almost a year old, because while Sloene was a caring and attentive mother, her daughter had always been a little more wild and free-roaming than perhaps her dam would have liked. Perhaps it was because she was part wildcat, perhaps it was something about her sire, or perhaps it was just the way the filly was wired. Sochi wonders if Ilma felt cheated, having received in return for her shy youngster a half-feral thing, who had spent the better part of her time so far wild in the mountains.

Ilma, if she has such thoughts, politely expresses none of them when she speaks. “The mountain is quite a place,” she responds with another smile. “I would love to see the rest of Hyaline, if it is as beautiful, and perhaps you could tell me about the Kingdom as we walk.” Sloene had brought them to Nerine to give her young daughter a home and a people, but it was the grulla mare who had found something in Nerine to fill a gap in her heart. Sochi was open to other options - which was part of why she had volunteered, to go abroad and see something else.

An ear flicks towards Ilma then when she speaks of things for Sochi to learn, and the filly hums a little while she thinks, as she turns to follow the older mare back down towards the bottom of the basin that forms the better part of Hyaline. “I do not know what I want to do.” Now she sounds her age, instead of years advanced. It’s the uncertainty, as compared to the aplomb with which she has spoken before. “Maybe I could meet with representatives of both castes, if they have time for me.”