[When the topic of their pasts had first been breached, that idyllic seeming day in the back garden of a small Springstar restaurant, pollen heavy in the air... Hayame had only suspected what Amos might be avoiding alluding to because she had been avoiding speaking of it, too. She hadn't mentioned her own experiences with it, not beyond the passing references to breeding stables, dams, and hunts. In Horos, now Kenos... people could not simply look at her and know those truths about her life simply because that was the lot of all of her kind. She got to pretend she was a bit of a person and not just a tool. That she'd always been. In the icy Hall of Mirrors on the Scorching Isles, though... she'd been far too angry, far too violent with his doppelganger once he'd met her gaze from pinned beneath it to pretend any longer. They'd parted in the cold with a certain quiet understanding.
But that understanding wasn't enough if an Oracle was at stake, was it?
It's over with, he'd said. All we got is to keep moving forward, he'd said. But now, under the influence of his spell... it isn't over at all. Not for her. Not anymore. The fear born of watching her dam and the other broodmares be led to the breeding stall, of watching what happened to the yearlings that failed to make the cut in training, of catching glimpses of nobles sampling the "wares" before auction... it's happening now.
I'm sorry, one of the grooms whispers in Amos' voice. The stallion on top of her locks his hands at the joints of her right arm, scrabbling for purchase to cover her, twisting hard- and Hayame screams in pain both in magical vision and in reality as her shoulder is wrested harshly from the socket.
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But that understanding wasn't enough if an Oracle was at stake, was it?
It's over with, he'd said. All we got is to keep moving forward, he'd said. But now, under the influence of his spell... it isn't over at all. Not for her. Not anymore. The fear born of watching her dam and the other broodmares be led to the breeding stall, of watching what happened to the yearlings that failed to make the cut in training, of catching glimpses of nobles sampling the "wares" before auction... it's happening now.
I'm sorry, one of the grooms whispers in Amos' voice. The stallion on top of her locks his hands at the joints of her right arm, scrabbling for purchase to cover her, twisting hard- and Hayame screams in pain both in magical vision and in reality as her shoulder is wrested harshly from the socket.
... But that's not right, is it?]