Her skin trembled where he touched, as reactive as ever to the painted stallion's ministrations. He'd grown softer in the years that had passed. Lost the sharp edge that perhaps he'd needed when Taiga and all it's accompanying responsibility had held him. Now he seemed more at ease with the island pace. It was an odd contrast to the seamare and her newly found steely streak.
Loss had given her what comfort had taken from him, and she found the offset uncomfortable now that they lay beside one another again. A sharp "ha!" was her initial response to his suggestion. It faded as he moved on to harder questions. Truths that had been pushed aside because there had been no point dwelling on them.
Now though, she did turn to him. Held his searching eyes with the luminous violet of her own. Her face betrayed no guilt. Not when the years had long since erased such a feeling. "I did, yes." She admitted, waiting for the disappointment to chase his features. It was tempting to leave it at that. The bitter piece of her wanted him to feel a touch of the regret she'd felt in his abandonment.
Time enough had passed though, and her regret had scarred over. Seeing him again had rubbed the old wound, made it bleed again a bit. But it was not so deep now as it had been, and she found the words that she'd rehearsed to herself so many times back then.
"I didn't know there would be a baby, at first," she , mouth turned into a wry smile. "I don't have them like most mares, you see. I lay eggs like some sharks do. So when Cormorant came along, I didn't know what to make of it. But after a while I could see him grow, and it was impossible to doubt what had happened." She paused. This next part was the hard part. The one she didn't regret, but knew it had set her on the path she was now.
With a breath, she continued. "When you came that last time, I-" She looked away, then back to him. He had the right to know now what had hung between them so long. "I didn't want you to stay just because there was a baby. It would be like I'd trapped you, and I couldn't feel right about it. So I kept my mouth shut, and hoped you'd come back when things were done in Taiga." The fact that he hadn't didn't need to be said. They both knew he hadn't.
It took a moment longer before she could continue, voice thick with emotion that had been suppressed until now. "A few weeks after he was born. Hatched. Whichever. I'd promised a friend of mine that we'd go visit her in Loess, so we made our way there, Cormorant, Hal and me. We stopped in Taiga. You'd left by then. No one knew where. Just that you'd abdicated, and left. Then when we got back to Ischia. Well. Eva wanted me to take over, so I did. And I found I was to busy to go looking for a man who didn't seem to want me to find him."
Aquaria finished her monologue, legs and tail pulled in tight about herself as she waited for his judgment to fall. She felt sick to her stomach. This was what all her years of waiting and wondering had accumulated in. Four years was long enough for anyone to wait.
@[Pteron]