If she is surprised by the sudden turn in conversation, she doesn’t show it. If something within her twists in response, something feral and vicious, she gives no name to it—not at first. Instead, her hooded silver eyes remain on him, studying him with that same kind of calculated intensity that she has practiced for nearly her entire life. She nods, abruptly, sharply, before she turns her cheek to him, watching the snow fall around them with the same intensity that she had just seconds ago poured on him.
When several moments pass, the silence thick in her throat, she breaks it again.
“I abandoned my second child,” her voice is as flat as his, the emotion wrung out of it. She doesn’t let her syllables quake or the sentences grow faint at the end. “I almost killed her, but decided to take her to the adoption den at the last second.” It was a kindness, she thinks, although certainly wouldn’t be viewed the same by someone who had been on the receiving end of it. It was the first time in months that she had thought about that moment—about seeing that iridescent blue filly curled up on the ground. Of seeing herself there, but of seeing Sinner too. Of knowing she wasn’t strong enough to keep her with her.
Nearly defiant, she turns her gaze back to him, squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin. She could explain more, she thinks. Explain why she had been driven to such an emotional response—of the trauma and the hatred that had boiled in her—but she had long ago learned that she did not owe the world anything. So she just faces him, gritting her teeth and waiting for whatever is to come.
she said a war ain't a war before both sides bleed
:(