There is little he understands about this mare before him, and less so with each word she speaks. Through his earlier rambling, he had not noticed any of her facial micro-expressions, and her words land harder than she probably uttered them in the first place. I am no mother.
He stares, hardly registering most of what comes next. His earlier, defiant statements brought from her naught but more denial. She uses reasoning which he knows somewhere, somehow, to be flawed, to be wrong - but the logic of her statements and the belief with which she brings them, bring forth a wave of immobilizing fear as cold as the waters that surround his birth home. And it is that wave that drowns the fire inside him for a moment. He shakes his head - they’re Nerinian trinkets, at least that’s what he'd always thought - but he can’t be sure. She had never told him where she was from, and he’d never asked. His father had told some stories of his youth - perhaps as a bit of a warning not to be as stupid as he, but still - but he doesn’t remember his mother doing that. She never told of her youth, or where she came from, be that Beqanna or elsewhere.
In the moment, he doesn’t come to the conclusion that she might not have remembered; but right now all he can do is shrink and shake his head. He feels tiny beneath her gaze. She might not be Breckin after all, might not be a mother like she says. How could any mother be so cold, so distant?
He tries to hope for something - her scent is similar, if not the same. ”You’re certain you don’t have a twin sister?” he pipes up - but the look in her eye is enough.
It’s hopeless, whatever this is. His mother is not present.
Not any more, at least.
from the ashes a fire shall be woken
@[Breckin]