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She was tired, so very, incredibly tired. Not because she had flown more miles than she'd ever imagined existed, not because she'd walked further than she had dreamed could be possible, not because she had journeyed into a world far beyond the one she'd spent a lifetime calling home. All of those things were true, but the tiredness Felicite felt was a tiredness of spirt more than body. She had traveled so far, driven exclusively on by hope, and sometimes the trailing barbs of reality would catch up with her. Now was one of those times, and as the mare stood surveying what, to her, seemed the most oppressive forest in existence, she felt as though she couldn't go a single step further.
Time had been kind to the mare; there were very few who would suspect that her descendants stretched into the "great x6+." Her face was as smooth, her stride as elegant, and her hair as thick and lustrous as it had ever been; even the stresses of her journey had left the mare unmarred. By appearance alone, she seemed to be a young mare in the prime of her life, not the aged widow she knew herself to be.
'Widow' was still the hardest thing to accept. It had been over a year since she had lost her beloved Andre, but the wound was still as fresh now as it had been the moment he breathed his last. It had been a peaceful end, and she was grateful for that for Andre's sake, but in the end, it was she who had been left to suffer. She who had been left alone, a relic without purpose.
Alec, her son, had long ago been bit with the wandering bug and journeyed to the lands beyond their home. He was pretty good about sending messages home via bird familiars, but it wasn't the same as seeing him in person. And although Giselle, her daughter, had settled down with a local stallion and was raising her family in the vicinity, Felicite had never quite hit it off with her son in law and, rather than cause awkwardness in that relationship, she had kept a respectful distance. She was the benevolent Grandmere, and that was enough.
At least, it had been enough when Andre was alive. He had been her rock, her strong shoulder, the yang to her yin. They had been youthful sweethearts, the only Soquili either had ever loved or wanted. They had been through so much...
Felicite closed her eyes, a muscle in her jaw working slightly as she thought about what she had lost...what they had lost. She couldn't recover everything, but maybe, after all this time, she could recover this.
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