Summer Nights Stories

Note: Characters are aged as if they were human.

"Isla," a petite chestnut mare called out gently, "May I come in?"

"Yes, of course," Shifting so she could her, another chestnut horse then moved forward a hoofstep or two. "Mother," she added primly, gazing at her mother with dark eyes.

"Are you ready, love?" The mare asked her young daughter, who was getting betrothed to Lord Cyrus Zyline's son. When a family holds the deed to a Realm it is the custom for the Realm's name to become the family's last name. And the Zyline's had only recently taken the deed from a young stallion who had no siblings and promised the deed to Cyrus when he died. He died a little while later, right before his marriage to a childhood friend, before he had children that might have been able to take the deed and break off the arrangement with Cyrus.

"Yes," Isla whispered gazing back into mirror, staring at her creamy brown mane, where flowers had been variously placed.

"Lady Erie!" a hesitant voice mumbled and Isla's mother turned to see a small mare before her, her head dipped low.

"Yes?" Lady Erie replied kindly. "What do you need, Sybil?"

"Your husband requests you two, it's time for the betrothal." The nervous maid acknowledged Isla with a small nod.