They remained at the café for nearly another half hour after that.
The tension from earlier had softened into something easier, something warmer. Most of the conversation flowed between Oscietra and Grandma Judy, the two of them slipping into animated discussion. Grandma Judy's hands moved often as she spoke, punctuating her words with sharp gestures, while Oscietra countered with dry remarks that earned her more than one indignant scoff.
Lunar chimed in here and there, sipping her iced chocolate between questions, her curiosity bright and earnest. She asked about race conditions in Japan, about the difference between NAR and JRA tracks, about assistant trainers and how mentorship under someone like Fumino Nase actually worked in practice. Each answer seemed to fuel another question, and though she tried to appear composed, the excitement beneath her calm exterior was impossible to miss.
Exceed, meanwhile, said very little.
She sat quietly, elegant as ever, fingers loosely folded around her porcelain cup. To anyone glancing over, she would have seemed entirely at ease, content to observe rather than participate. And for the most part, that was true. She let her trainer's enthusiasm spill freely, letting her daughter debate with familiar fire.
But every so often, her eyes drifted toward Lunar.
It was subtle—so subtle that Lunar never noticed. A glance held a second too long. A softness in her gaze that faded before anyone could comment. There was something about the way Lunar's face changed with each answer, the way she chose her words carefully, that stirred memories Exceed had long tried to fold away neatly.
Then, without warning, her violet eyes widened. The bell above the café entrance chimed softly as the door opened, the delicate sound cutting through the layered murmur of conversation and drew her attention there.
A familiar figure stepped inside. It was her. Nelly.
From Exceed's perspective, the world seemed to narrow, the background noise dimming as if someone had turned down the volume on reality itself. She saw that figure not as the others might—a legendary, formidable presence with an effortless aura—but as something far more complicated.
She saw the woman she had once loved with a devotion that bordered on recklessness, the kind of love that made her blind to her own limits and deaf to her own warnings. She saw the girl she had watched train alone during their younger days from afar, long before titles and reputations had crystallized around her name, the same figure she had lingered to watch run down the track more times than she would ever dare to admit aloud.
She saw the quiet strength in her walk, the familiar set of her shoulders, the depth in her blue eyes that had once made her heart race for reasons she could never fully explain.
And she also saw the woman who had never truly looked back at her the same way.
The woman who had given her the highest decree of love she had ever known, and in the same breath, the highest decree of pain.
Exceed had told herself countless times that she would stop loving her. She had promised herself she would learn from the hurt, that she would construct distance carefully and wear her dignity like armor, that she would allow the past to remain where it belonged instead of letting it bleed into the present.
But every time she saw Nelly—every time that familiar silhouette entered her line of sight—something inside her betrayed all of that hard-earned resolve and collapsed inward, falling helplessly all over again.
It was humiliating.
It was love.
And she hated that it was both.
The sharp sound of a hand striking the table snapped her cleanly from the spiral of memory she had been falling into.
Oscietra had shot to her feet so abruptly that her chair scraped harshly against the floor, the sound jarring in the otherwise quiet café. Her palm slammed against the tabletop with a loud thud, rattling the glasses and making the ice in Lunar's drink clink sharply against the sides.
"What are you doing here?!" she demanded, her voice cutting through the room with open hostility.
Thankfully, the café was nearly empty at this hour, with only a single waiter and the barista behind the counter, both of whom froze awkwardly at the sudden outburst before quickly pretending to busy themselves elsewhere.
Black Caviar did not flinch.
She continued walking at the same steady pace she had entered with, her expression unreadable. Each step was unhurried, as though she had expected this reaction and found it neither surprising nor concerning.
When she reached the table, she stopped beside it.
Her gaze moved first—not to Oscietra—but to Lunar. She offered Lunar a small, faint smile, one that did not quite reach her eyes.
"G'day, Lunar," she said softly.
Lunar returned the smile, though hers was even more strained. "G'day… Aunt Nel…"
Only then did Black Caviar shift her attention to Judy. "Good to see you still healthy, Trainer Judy," she greeted politely.
Judy snorted at once, folding her arms. "What? You think I'd be in my sickbed and dying or something?" she shot back. "Of course I'm healthy!"
Black Caviar inclined her head slightly, unfazed by the bite in her tone. "Of course I don't think that," she replied smoothly.
Her lips curved into something that resembled warmth but did not quite feel like it. Her eyes, however, remained cool.
"After all," she continued evenly, "what sick person would be capable of orchestrating this entire meeting through her ex-trainee in order to approach a child under her protection—whom she had specifically instructed not to be bothered by anyone?"
The smile never left her face, but the temperature at the table dropped several degrees.
Lunar felt it immediately—the shift.
The coldness in Aunt Nel's tone was unfamiliar, unsettling in a way she had never experienced before. Black Caviar had always been composed, sometimes distant, sometimes difficult to read, and occasionally stern when scolding them, but even her reprimands had carried a trace of warmth beneath the firmness. There had always been a quiet reassurance that, no matter how sharp her words sounded, they were rooted in care.
This was different. This was ice.
There was something restrained and brittle in her voice now, something that felt less like control and more like something barely contained, and it made Lunar's fingers tighten unconsciously around her glass as she stared at her aunt in quiet confusion. She had never seen Aunt Nel rattled like this before.
Before the tension could thicken further, a soft voice broke through it.
"I… went along with Trainer's whims."
All eyes turned.
Exceed had spoken.
Her voice was quieter than usual, touched by a timid anxiety that did not belong to the poised and elegant woman she typically was. Her fingers had tightened in her lap, knuckles faintly pale as she forced herself to continue.
"The children didn't know anything about it," she added, her gaze lowered toward the table. "Oscietra was not involved either, I agreed to it. If anyone is to be blamed… it should be me."
She swallowed, and when she finally lifted her eyes, there was something in them that seemed more fragile than the glass Lunar is holding.
"I'm sorry."
The words broke something in Black Caviar's mind.
The expression that accompanied them—the quiet guilt, the way Exceed's shoulders folded inward as if preparing to be reprimanded, struck her like a blow from years past.
A memory she had long tried to bury forced its way to the surface.
The countless evenings with the same subdued apology. The same bowed head. The same fragile, aching smile that said I will endure this if it makes things easier for you.
Every day. "I'm sorry."
The coldness on Black Caviar's face cracked instantly.
"Wait—Exceed… I didn't mean—" Her voice faltered, the sharp edge dissolving as panic slipped through. "You didn't do anythi—"
She reached out instinctively, her hand lifting toward Exceed without thought. But before she could bridge the distance, Oscietra moved.
Her fingers clamped firmly around Black Caviar's wrist, stopping her mid-motion with a grip that trembled not from weakness, but from restrained fury.
"Don't touch my mother," Oscietra snapped, her voice shaking with anger barely held in check. "Can't you see she always gets like this when you're around? This is exactly why I don't want you near her!"
Black Caviar did not resist. She simply allowed her wrist to remain caught for a brief moment, her gaze dropping to Oscietra's hand, accepting the hostility as something earned. Then, with calm restraint, she gently but firmly withdrew her arm from the younger woman's grasp.
The movement was effortless at first, but the step she took afterward—small, uncertain—betrayed something else entirely.
She did not know what to do.
Oscietra had already turned away from her, her anger dissolving instantly into worry as she shifted closer to Exceed. She rose fully to her feet and positioned herself protectively beside her mother, one hand resting on Exceed's shoulder.
"Mom," she asked softly, the sharpness gone from her tone, replaced by quiet urgency. "Are you okay?"
Exceed nodded faintly, though her gaze remained fixed on the floor. She inhaled slowly, then exhaled, as if reminding herself how to breathe properly. A few quiet words slipped past her lips, too soft to be clearly heard, more reassurance to herself than to anyone else.
Trainer Judy watched the exchange with unmistakable worry etching deeper lines into her expression. After a moment, she turned her attention to Black Caviar.
"I sincerely apologize for the method I used to meet Lunar," Judy said, her voice no longer laced with sarcasm or amusement, completely serious. "I went through means I perhaps should not have, and for that, I take responsibility. But I had to meet her. Consider it the indulgence of an old woman's curiosity."
Her gaze flicked briefly to Exceed before returning to Black Caviar, her eyes firm now. "However," she continued, "I believe it is time for you to leave. The situation… requires it."
The words were polite, but there was no room for argument in them.
Black Caviar held her gaze for a long second before giving a small nod.
Judy then turned to Lunar, her expression softening once more. "It was nice meeting you, child. Let us speak again, if time allows."
Lunar nodded quickly. "Goodbye, Grandma Judy."
Without another word, she slid off her seat. The movement was small but decisive. She stepped toward Black Caviar, who still stood there looking faintly taken aback by everything.
Lunar reached out and gently tugged at the sleeve of her coat. "Let's go, Aunt Nel," she said softly.
Before leading her away, Lunar turned back one last time. Her eyes found Exceed first, then Oscietra.
"It was really nice to meet you, Aunt Exceed," she said sincerely, her voice gentle despite the lingering tension. "I hope… we can talk properly in the future."
Oscietra looked up from where she stood beside her mother, her expression still guarded, but after a brief pause, she gave a small nod in place of Exceed, who remained quiet.
And with that, Lunar guided Black Caviar toward the exit, the café door chiming softly as it closed behind them, leaving the table steeped in a silence thick with things long buried and never truly resolved.
For several moments, no one spoke.
Exceed's breathing was still uneven, her gaze fixed somewhere on the grain of the wooden table. Oscietra remained beside her, one hand resting protectively against her mother's shoulder, while Judy watched with an expression that had lost all earlier playfulness.
Slowly, gradually, Exceed found herself. She drew in one careful breath, then another, climbing back up from somewhere deep and unsteady within her own mind. The tremor in her fingers lessened under Judy's firm, grounding grip.
"…Is Nelly gone?" she asked at last, her voice quiet and fragile.
Judy's hand was already wrapped around Exceed's trembling one on the table, her hold warm and reassuring. "Yes," she answered gently. "Lunar took her away."
Exceed let out a dry laugh that held no real humor. She lifted her head slightly and glanced toward Judy before gently easing herself out of Oscietra's protective hold, as though embarrassed by how visibly shaken she had been.
"I'm sorry," she murmured. "I'm just so pathetic when it comes to her…"
Judy immediately squeezed her former trainee's hand more firmly. "No, you aren't," she said without hesitation, her voice steady and certain. "If anything, you are brave, Exceed."
A faint smile tugged at Exceed's lips, but she shook her head lightly. "But Nelly didn't even do anything," she replied softly. "She just showed up."
"Didn't do anything?!" Oscietra burst out, her restraint finally snapping. She straightened abruptly, anger flaring across her face. "Everything she does makes you like this, Mom! Why are you still defending her?"
"Baby…" Exceed began gently, her tone pleading rather than reprimanding.
"Don't you dare say she changed!" Oscietra shot back at once, her voice rising despite herself. "That changes nothing! If she wanted to take Lunar, she could've sent someone else. She has people for that. She didn't have to come herself."
Her hands clenched tightly at her sides as the words spilled out faster, sharper, each one edged with years of unresolved hurt. "She must have known you'd be here. She must have done it on purpose just to mess with you."
"Oscietra!" Exceed's voice rose slightly, sharper than before, cutting through her daughter's spiraling anger. "Stop it. Nelly doesn't even know about my PTSD—"
"Well, she should have known!" Oscietra fired back instantly, her emotions raw and unfiltered. "Even if we didn't tell her, she should have cared enough to notice! She should have put in the effort to understand what she did to you. But she never does. Not before, and not now!"
Her voice echoed louder than she intended, drawing an uncomfortable glance from the waiter and the barista behind the counter, both of whom still pretending not to hear anything.
"That's enough."
Judy's voice cut through the air, firm and unmistakably stern. It was not loud, but it carried authority that left no room for dismissal.
Oscietra froze where she stood.
"Do you realize how childish you are being right now?" Judy continued, her tone serious in a way that made the weight of her words undeniable. "Your mother is already distressed, and you are raising your voice at her in a public place. Is that truly helping her?"
The anger drained from Oscietra's face almost as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by dawning horror as she registered what she had done. She turned slowly toward Exceed, who was still seated, still pale, still trying to steady herself.
"I…" Oscietra's voice faltered. "I'm sorry, Mom." Regret was written plainly across her face now.
Exceed looked up at her daughter and, without hesitation, reached out to take her hand. "It's okay, baby…" she said softly, her voice gentle despite the lingering tremor in it. "I would never blame you for standing up for me."
Her thumb brushed lightly over Oscietra's knuckles, a quiet gesture of reassurance. "You were trying to protect me. That is not something I could ever be upset about."
Oscietra swallowed hard, nodding as she squeezed her mother's hand back, this time more gently.
Judy watched the exchange in silence for a moment before speaking again, her tone shifting from stern to contemplative. "You act like this whenever Black is involved," she began slowly, "all anger and raging fire. But when it comes to that child… you suddenly become so gentle."
Oscietra blinked. "Huh?"
Judy tilted her head slightly, clarifying with a small motion of her hand. "I don't just mean around Black Caviar. You can be sharp-tongued and intimidating with most people if you wish to be. You rarely soften your delivery, and you never hesitate to speak your mind." A faint smile touched her lips. "But with Lunar, it is different."
Oscietra's brows knit together as she tried to follow.
"It is not simply kindness," Judy continued. "It is a particular kind of gentleness. The sort I once thought you reserved only for your mother. And yet, when you look at Lunar, when you speak to her, there is that same carefulness in you." She regarded Oscietra with quiet curiosity. "Why is that?"
Oscietra's eyebrows lowered slightly as she glanced at Judy, then shifted her gaze to Exceed. For a brief second, her expression softened in a way that answered more than words could.
"It's because…" she began, then paused. She looked directly at her mother. "I love my mom."
The suddenness of the statement seemed to confuse both Judy and Exceed, who blinked almost in unison.
Oscietra continued before either could respond, her voice steady but carrying an emotion that trembled just beneath the surface. "I love my mother so, so much," she said quietly. "The thought of her not being by my side one day… it would gnaw at me from the inside. I think it would hollow me out until all that's left is just a living corpse going through the motions."
Exceed's violet eyes widened slightly at the rawness of the confession, at the depth of feeling she had perhaps sensed but never heard articulated so plainly by her daughter.
Oscietra let out a slow breath before continuing. "If I, someone who's already grown up, feel this way… then I can't even begin to imagine what Lunar must feel like every single day without her mother."
Her voice softened, losing all earlier sharpness. "So I treat her the way I would want someone to treat me if I were the one drowning in that kind of despair. Carefully and gently, like she might break if handled too roughly, because I know I would."
Exceed reached out slowly, her fingers brushing against Oscietra's cheek before resting there, her touch light and affectionate. "What a sweet baby you are, I'm so glad to hear you think like that…" she murmured, her voice thick with emotion she did not bother hiding.
Judy remained quiet for a moment after Oscietra's confession, but curiosity had never been a trait she could suppress for long. Her gaze shifted between the two of them before she finally spoke again.
"Isn't Lunar the child of Guair?"
Oscietra's expression did not change.
Judy continued carefully, choosing her words with deliberate thought. "Doesn't that push any of your buttons? Knowing that Lunar is the child of the person whose existence, in many ways, led to you and your mother being… neglected?"
The question was delicate, but it was not cruel. It was simply honest. Oscietra's response, however, came without hesitation.
"I would never blame Lunar," she said firmly, the conviction in her voice leaving little room for doubt. "Nor her mother."
Her jaw tightened slightly. "If I did that—if I shifted someone else's mistakes onto them—then I would be no better than her."
She did not need to say the name.
Judy nodded slowly, absorbing the weight of that answer. "I see."
She leaned back slightly and took a sip from her cup of black tea, which had long since gone cold, though she did not seem to mind. Her gaze drifted toward the café window where Exceed sat quietly, her reflection faint against the glass as she stared outside, clearly lost in her own thoughts.
"That child," Judy murmured thoughtfully, "might just be able to solve everything."
Her eyes lingered on Exceed, who remained silent, her attention fixed somewhere beyond the window as if the world outside offered an easier place for her mind to rest.
—-
Outside, Lunar led Black Caviar through a narrow alleyway, where the sound of the main street faded into a softer, distant murmur. There were only a few passersby, none paying much attention, and the air carried the faint scent of rain lingering from the earlier morning.
Lunar slowed her steps once they were far enough from the café.
Then she stopped and turned around.
Black Caviar halted as well, standing quietly a few steps behind her. A mask covered part of her face to avoid recognition, but even with half her features hidden, the emptiness in her blue eyes was impossible to miss. It was not anger, nor irritation, nor even frustration.
It was grief. A quiet, hollow grief that had settled deep within her.
Lunar swallowed gently before speaking. "Aunt Nel…"
The simple address seemed to stir something. Black Caviar's gaze shifted, the emptiness flickering as a faint light returned to her eyes when they focused on Lunar. "Yes?" she asked softly.
Lunar hesitated only briefly before asking, "Were you… a bad person toward Big Sis Oscie and Aunt Exceed?"
The question was direct, but it carried no cruelty. It was not an accusation, only the sincere curiosity of someone trying to understand something complicated.
Black Caviar's eyes softened, and a sad smile formed beneath her mask, visible in the subtle lift of her cheeks and the quiet regret settling into her gaze.
"Yes," she answered without deflection. "I was."
Her voice did not waver. "I was a horrible wife and mother. Not just to them… but to the pair that came after as well."
She exhaled slowly. "Sebring and our daughter…. I hurt them too." There was no attempt to justify herself.
"I regret it every single day," she admitted quietly.
Lunar took a few small steps closer to the older mare, the quiet alley leaving their voices as the only sound between them. "What kind of things did you do?" she asked.
Black Caviar's gaze dropped briefly to the pavement before returning to Lunar. "I ignored them," she said plainly. "Avoid them whenever I can. I made excuses for the simplest things, and I repeated those excuses so often that eventually they became routine."
Her voice remained calm, but there was no mistaking the heaviness behind it.
"Something as small as eating dinner together became something I postponed again and again. I was always too busy, or too tired, or too preoccupied with something else that seemed more important at the moment."
Her fingers curled faintly at her sides as she continued.
"And in the name of love…" she murmured, her voice lowering slightly, "I did something unforgivable. I convinced myself that what I felt justified the neglect. I told myself that because my heart was elsewhere, it was somehow acceptable to turn my back on the people who were actually standing beside me."
Her eyes grew distant, as if the memory itself was something she could still see unfolding in front of her.
"If Guair had seen me back then," she said quietly, pain threading through the words, "I'm certain she would have been disgusted with me."
Lunar stood quietly for a moment, absorbing everything Black Caviar had confessed, before lifting her eyes again with careful thoughtfulness.
"When did you change your ways?" she asked gently.
For the first time since they had stepped outside the café, a faint laugh escaped Black Caviar. It was soft and slightly incredulous, carrying the awkward warmth of someone remembering a moment that had been both humiliating and life-changing.
"Autumn," she said simply.
Lunar blinked. "Aunt Autumn?"
Black Caviar nodded, and despite the lingering heaviness in her expression, there was unmistakable fondness beneath it.
"After Autumn returned to Australia from traveling the world for several years, we arranged to meet for the first time in quite a while," Black Caviar said, her voice carrying the distant warmth of an old memory. "At least, that was what I thought it would be—just a casual reunion between old friends."
She paused briefly, the corner of her mouth twitching faintly as she remembered how that day had actually unfolded.
"We were sitting together over tea when she found out—completely by accident—that I was married to two people and had one daughter with each of them, yet was living separately because of how badly I had neglected them."
A small breath escaped her nose. "She didn't take that information very well."
Lunar's eyes widened slightly as Black Caviar continued.
"She physically beat some sense into me," she admitted without any pride in her voice. "Not out of hatred, and not even purely out of anger either. She did it because she empathized with the people I was hurting… and because she still cared about the person I was slowly turning into."
For a moment, Lunar could not help the image that formed in her mind.
The thought of petite Aunt Autumn—the smallest among nearly all the adults she knew—standing toe-to-toe with Aunt Nel, who was not only the tallest but also the physically strongest among them, felt almost absurd on the surface. Yet the longer she considered it, the more it began to make sense. Strength, she realized, was not always measured by size or muscle.
Sometimes it came from conviction.
If anything, the thought only made Lunar respect Aunt Autumn even more.
Black Caviar exhaled softly, the sound carrying the weight of years she could not undo.
"Since that day, I've tried to be better," she said. "I started staying instead of leaving. I began sitting at the table, listening when they spoke, and giving my following spouses and daughters the time and attention they had always deserved."
Her gaze drifted slightly, distant but resolute. "I tried to repair what I could," she continued. "But I also learned something important along the way. Old wounds do not simply vanish just because you decide to become a better person. They remain, even when you change. They become scars, and sometimes those scars ache… even when you are doing everything right."
Her mind drifted back to the café.
To the way Exceed had lowered her gaze.To the trembling apology that had slipped from her lips as though it were a habit she could never quite unlearn. The memory tightened painfully around Black Caviar's chest.
"I saw the way Exceed looked at me just now," she admitted quietly. "And in that moment, I was reminded again of how cruel I had been in the past… and just how deeply I hurt her."
Silence settled gently between them once more.
Lunar pondered her words carefully, her small brows furrowing as she weighed what she wanted to say next. "Aunt Nel…" she began slowly, her tone unusually serious. "You… deserved to be hated by big sis Oscie."
The words were blunt, and for a moment, Black Caviar visibly stilled. The honesty stung even more coming from Lunar. After a second, she gave a faint nod. "Yes," she agreed quietly. "I did."
Before she could spiral further into self-reproach, Lunar suddenly stepped forward.
Without warning she wrapped her arms around Black Caviar's shoulders, rising onto her toes to make up for the difference in height as her small frame stretched upward with determined effort.
"You deserved that," Lunar continued gently against her, her voice muffled slightly by the embrace, "because of the bad things you did."
Black Caviar froze for a heartbeat, clearly startled by the sudden contact.
"But," Lunar added quickly, tightening her hold just a little as if to make sure the next words were understood just as clearly, "you also deserve to be loved by me—no, by all of us—because of the amazing things you've done too."
She shifted slightly on her toes, trying to keep her balance while still clinging to the much taller mare.
"Like this hug," she finished simply.
Black Caviar's breath caught.
For a few seconds, she remained motionless, stunned by the uncomplicated warmth of it, by the absence of judgment in the embrace. Then, slowly, almost carefully, her own arms lifted and folded around Lunar's smaller frame, drawing the girl fully into her hold.
She held her tightly, but not possessively—carefully, fearing the moment might shatter if she clung too hard. Her vision blurred as tears welled despite her effort to keep them contained, and she let out a shaky breath that she tried, unsuccessfully, to disguise as a quiet chuckle.
"You really do know how to make me cry, Lunar," she murmured, her voice thick even as she tried to keep the tone light. "Did you learn that from her as well?"
Lunar leaned back slightly within the embrace so she could look up at her.
"I didn't," she answered honestly. "But Momma did teach me something."
Black Caviar loosened her arms just enough to meet the girl's eyes. "Oh?" she asked softly. "What is it?"
Lunar nodded, her expression earnest and bright despite the heaviness that still lingered in the air between them.
"Momma once told me that someone who manages to change from being bad to becoming good is far more impressive than someone who has always been perfect," she said thoughtfully. "Because perfection doesn't require courage… but change does."
Black Caviar stilled completely.
"So if Momma could see you right now, Aunt Nel," Lunar continued, her voice warming with quiet certainty, "then I think she would be really, really proud of you."
For a moment, Black Caviar simply stared at her, then something inside her chest broke open.
The alley faded around her as an old memory surfaced without warning, so vivid that it almost felt like stepping back through time.
Guair had once stood in front of her with that same gentle smile, the same quiet confidence in her voice as she spoke almost the exact same words—words that Black Caviar had forgotten, burying them beneath years of mistakes and regret.
Someone who can change is far more admirable than someone who never had to.
And now Lunar stood before her with that same warmth in her eyes, wearing an expression so painfully similar that it made Black Caviar's throat tighten.
Her vision blurred immediately.
Tears welled before she could stop them, threatening to spill over the edge, and she quickly lifted a hand to wipe at her eyes in a clumsy attempt to hide them before they could fall.
"You're right…" she murmured softly, her voice rougher than she intended. "Thank you, Lunar."
They stood there quietly for a few seconds more before Black Caviar finally stepped back from the embrace.
Then, without saying anything else, she turned around and lowered herself down onto one knee in front of the smaller girl.
"Come on," she said, glancing over her shoulder with a faint smile that had regained some of its usual composure. "Hop on. Let's walk home while you tell me what you talked about at the café with Trainer Judy."
Lunar's eyes brightened instantly. "Okay!" she answered without hesitation.
She climbed onto Black Caviar's back with decisive enthusiasm, wrapping her arms around the taller mare's shoulders as Black Caviar rose smoothly to her feet, lifting her with ease into a piggyback.
Once balanced securely, Lunar settled against her back while Black Caviar adjusted her hold beneath the girl's legs before beginning to walk down the alley.
Black Caviar footsteps echoed softly against the pavement as they moved toward the main street again. "So," Black Caviar said lightly as they walked, her tone gradually returning to its usual casual warmth, "what did that old fox want to talk to you about?"