Scenes flashed past through the narrow frame of her view. Greens over brown, blurring and shifting into each other, never quite allowing for the identification of any one thing before it was pulled into a void long and gone out of sight, replaced by the next best thing. A sign to somewhere, gone in an instant. A patch of trees soon disappeared that may as well have been cut down for their absence a moment later. An empty field. A rusted truck near indistinguishable for the vegetation that had nearly swallowed it whole...

Flesh pressed to glass, it's still cool despite the rays of sun peaking through the clouds to beat down upon it. The clouds were finally parting, the last of the water skating in beads across the window, blown back by the currents of air just like everything else they passed. It set the entire scene into a clouded haze of obscurity, colours swirling and melting, allowing the imagination to run rampant... lured towards distant landscapes by the gentle rumble of the road under seat..

A barn waited in the distance, white, but with paint flaking in a few places to reveal the weathered wood beneath. The great door slid to reveal a small crack, the void beyond as inviting as it was foreboding. Unfocused and lost to thought, she pictured herself walking towards it, fingers trailing along the fence that lined the walkway leading up to it. breaths came slowly, almost haltingly, as though having to consciously remember to inhale. Having to then blow the air from her lungs, pushing against an invisible external pressure. Silence. There was no crunch of gravel, to click of her boots on stone. Only a persistent monotonic drone, like a chorus distorted by a mile of water.

It kept up with her, the barn. Somehow. Where nothing else seemed to provide time enough for any distinctive identification, the barn remained clear upon the horizon. But for every step forward, it seemed to fade farther into the distance, shadows falling over it, the expectant whinny of a horse never sounding. She ran towards it, trees snapping past in an instant, wind buffeting her hair across her face, sporadic droplets of water spattering obnoxiously upon her face to drag across her cheeks.

The distant droning grew, the sound pressing down upon her. Pressing against her ears, deafening her to the silence, distracting her from the rumble. It grew louder, more insistent, more pronounced, the barn blinking occasionally from view. She tried to hold onto it, to fight against the sound. Somehow she knew that if she allowed it to distract her, she would never catch up, would never be able to wrap her hand around the polished handle bar and push her weight against the hanging slabs and pull them open. She would never be able to dive headlong into the dark to find what was supposed to be—

"EVELYNN."

In a blink, it was gone. All of it. The barn, the fence, the trees, the path... Vanished. In their stead, the image of a gas station blurred past. Adjusting her position, flesh pried itself from where it had stuck against glass and as she raised a hand to smooth back her hair, Evelynn felt the remnants of residual moisture on her cheeks. Without a second thought, she wiped it away and sniffed back the disappointment that her vision had been just that: a vision.

"Evelynn?"

Head lolling back against the cushion, Evelynn was vaguely aware of the appearance of a pair of eyes framed by the rear view mirror between the two seats ahead of her. She refused to meet them, her own focus still direction out her passenger window as the scenes rolled by in ceaseless torment. How long they had been on the road, she wasn't sure. It had felt like she'd lost an entire afternoon to that endless trek from the back door of her house towards the barn.

"Please don't ignore me when I'm trying to talk to you..."

Lips parted with with the exaggerated inhalation—like a breath of rejuvenating air that had long been withheld. She blue it slowly through her nose, lips crimping with the mental effort to steel herself against the battle she had yet to really face. Silence and solitude always seemed so preferable than direct confrontation. It hadn't mattered up until this point what she had said. No amount of debate, tears or pitiful pleas had so much as even a single iota of weight against the inevitable outcome. The conclusion had been the same regardless, and she had been expected to bear it with the grace with which she had been taught to hold.

Head lolling, she rolled it against the rest, tearing her gaze from the passing countryside to meet with that of her expectant mother. It held only for a couple seconds, an impenetrable silence spanning the chasm between them until responsible driving had forced the elder to break the tenuous connection and return focus to the road. Reprieved, Evelynn turned her head back to the window. A low sigh sounded from the front.

"I think you'll like it when we get there," the disembodied voice of her mother tried, despite Evelynn's very clear lack of interest in carrying on any kind of conversation.

Apparently it was too much to ask for her to be driven in silence. Although... Evelynn supposed also that at this point, perhaps she was expected to be grateful that she was being driven there at all... Then again, she wasn't sure she wanted to be. To be dependent on someone else's time and skill to be able to spend time with Cassie... It was difficult at times to differentiate between which fate was worse. A clean break might have been kinder than the veiled promise of possibilities held out of reach..

"It's quite a nice facility, actually.." Her mother went on. "You can tell the family that runs it is no novice to horsemanship." Perhaps this had been the drone that had served the backdrop previously... "They seem to keep the care of their horses to quite high standards." A passing tree sported a branch that had been split from its trunk to trail limply against the ground as though struck by an executioner with poor follow-through. "In fact I don't think I've ever seen it deserted. I've never met the family, personally, though. But they have dedicated staff that keep the horses fed and watered."

The sound of the blinker ticked away the seconds, a metronome without a musician. The interlude to the unrequited conversation as it temporarily died down, attention redirected to the road as they turned off of it and onto another. For one precious moment... solace. But peace was tenuous and her mother's attempt to fill the silence and would shatter it anew, shards send flying to pierce whatever acceptance of the situation she had managed to raise.

"They provide the option to completely customize the boarding. I have requested they do an alternating turn-out for Cass to make s—"

"Cassiopeia," Evelynn interjected monotonously.

A pause.

Evelynn couldn't quite explain why, but it bothered her to here her mother speak so informally of her horse when she was the one to put them in this situation in the first place. She had no right to call the one she'd stolen away by affectionate nicknames. A pair of eyes had glanced up once again to the mirror that overlooked the back seats, but Evelynn didn't meet them. Nor did she care to gauge the expression on her mother's profile.

"I have requested they do an alternating turn-out," her mother repeated, eyes disappearing again, "to make sure she doesn't bloat on the grass." Avoiding the name entirely. She supposed that was better than disgracing it. "I'm told she's settling in well with part of the herd, though. No surprise there though, really, given her siring."

Evelynn's brows pinched together. As much as she was trying to focus on the scenery of the beautiful naturescape, she couldn't quite ignore her mother's words. In particular, the last of them seemed to worm their way into Evelynn's thoughts, valiantly riling up her curiosity in a way that made her reel internally with self-annoyance. Lips twitched, temple permitted to drift slowly back to press once more against the window, but it wouldn't be long before a sullen question plied itself from her lips, "What about her siring?"

Another pause.

"Did I not tell you?"

Annoyance roiled anew. By that returning question alone, she could practically feel the gloating emanating from her mother that she had finally managed to draw forth some sort of response from her daughter. Evelynn did not deign to give answer. And evidently, her mother would not require one.

"She wasn't sired here of course.." Another series of ticks from the blinker. "But I thought the names sounded familiar when I was looking into the background of the stables and everything they had to offer. I've since come to find out that it's the same family that provided the stud who sired her. So in a way, she's returning to her roots."

Another twitch of the lips. As much as Evelynn would have liked to have been able to dismiss that information as tedious, she couldn't. Cassie's pedigree had always been something in which the young witch had taken a certain amount of pride. If what her mother was saying was true, then...

She exhaled a breath through her nose, air condensing itself in a fog across the window before disappearing a second later. No. There was no room for thoughts like that. It didn't matter where she had come from, or who had sired her. The road to hell is paved with good intention, and candied words deceive. The point remained that Cassie had been rehomed in a way that made it so Evelynn would only be able to visit her on the rare occasions that her mother had time enough to spare to drive her. The loss of separation wasn't something that some interesting notion would easily overcome.

"Stop trying to make this all right," she cut.

"What do you mean?" There were those eyes again.

"What do you mean..." Evelynn echoed to herself under her breath, the air heavy with derision. "It is as though you are trying to come up with reasons to make this entire situation something good," she began again, replying, before clearing her throat. It felt like something had lodged itself there. "As though you are trying to hand wave the fact that she is gone—"

"Eevee..."

"—that you are taking—have taken—her away from me."

"I'm not taking her away from you..."

"Oh, but you have!" That choking grip wrapped itself around the witch's neck all over again as she pushed herself from the window and looked at her mother—really looked at her mother—for the first time that drive. Brows pinched, flames of her accusation stoked. "If she is not at home, then she is away. She was all I had left. She was the one thing that I had to look forward to when I came home during the holidays. Not you. You are working," the accusation was intended to bite, and she was not sorry for it.

And she wouldn't stop there. "Not friends. For what friends have I here? Not family, as they remain across the ocean. We moved here for your work, and that seems to be giving you everything you could want. You gave me her so that I would not be alone. You made me train her. You made me care for her. You made me sew my days to hers. And now you have the audacity to take her away—"

"Evelynn, I haven't sold her!" As empathetic as the words were meant to be, a shred of frustration had woven its way into her mother's tone. "She is still your horse."

"Is there really much of a difference?" Evelynn shot back, lips parted since her sinuses seemed to have conspired against her in that moment. Shoulders rose with a steadying breath. "She wasn't there. In the barn.." The image of her mother's pursed lips swam in front of her. "It was empty. And she was gone. It didn't even smell like her anymore.." Lips pulled themselves in over her teeth as she took another sniffling breath. "I can't... I.."

She had to stop. Not because she wanted to—she still had a stance to defend—but because she physically could not bring herself to utter words. Breaths were ragged. Eyes pricking painfully with her attempts to keep herself in check. She swallowed. And again. But it was as though the dam were bursting, body shuddering with pent up pain pushing for freedom. Fingers clutched at the cloth of her chemise, nails biting into the flesh of her palms even through the stitched defence. She clutched her eyes tight, the force loosing a bead of tears to trickle down her cheek.

From the driver's seat came a defeated sigh. "It's not like I wanted to have to do this..."

Evelynn didn't answer, succeeding only to take a series of controlled breaths, head pressed firmly against the window frame, eyes staring blearily out to nothing in particular.

"You're gone, Evelynn.." her mother continued. And in that moment, Evelynn wished she wouldn't. "For ten months of the year. Nine, if you count being home for the two weeks at winter and spring. I know it's hard. I do..."

Eyes that glanced up in the mirror went ignored. Another heavy breath as they redirected back to the road. A lonely blinker sounded another shift in direction. The moving pictures in the window started to linger for a little longer before disappearing into the void that extended behind them.

"I understand that it feels like I'm taking something away from you. For that, I'm sorry." A part of Evelynn wished she could say that it didn't sound like her mother really was all that apologetic. But she would be lying. "But I'm not only raising you. Cassiopeia is your horse, yes. But I have to be conscious of her welfare as well. Who do you think looks after her during those nine months? I do. And I am struggling, Evelynn. I have enough time to feed her and open her to paddock when I can. But sometimes she remains stalled. Sometimes she goes weeks without being ridden. It's not easy to find someone in town that I can trust to fill in the gaps. And it's not fair to her. She deserves more. I'm trying to give that to her."

The truth behind the words was one that Evelynn was not prepared to receive. As though every word were delivered with a sledgehammer, the resolve of Evelynn's defence was slowly demolished. One by one, the cracks began to widen, guilt and helplessness at the situation rooting themselves deeply to prevent any resurrection of the walls. It wasn't raining anymore, but for how the colours of the countryside seemed to swim together in a way discordant with their pace, it may as well have been. Once again, silence descended. This time, however, the direction of flow had reverse. It wasn't a pressure anymore, but rather a vacuum that seemed to sap from Evelynn the every ounce of strength she had left.

She felt alone. Empty.

Hands relaxed, one of them slipping from its place on her thigh to cup over the phone that sat beside her as though it alone stopped her from drifting off into the gloom.

"Evelynn.." Once again, the voice of her mother cut its way into the solace of the silence. "We're here."