That look - all determination, innocence, and optimism reflecting in her sky-blue eyes – that last look in the moment before Brienne had left her side to meet the other foals on her own… it will stay with Isoke forever. She can still feel her own dark brown eyes pricking with tears as she picks her way through the trees towards the rushing of the river. Whether they are tears of fear or joy, she isn’t certain.

Perhaps both.

Morgan is still down on the beach being reclusive, no doubt. She had not asked to come up the ridge with Isoke, and Isoke had not asked her, knowing that the grulla mare wanted next to nothing to do with the ridge herd, particularly Nikola. “I will be back soon,” she had told her friend, with a gentle touch of reassurance on the cheek. What she was parting ways for, she had left to Morgan’s imagination. I am sure she understands.

A brown bird which had been sitting on an upturned rock by the river’s banks explodes suddenly into flight, startling Isoke. Already worked up from abandoning her daughter to the fates of the forest, she bolts and nearly takes a tumble into the river, saving herself just a heartbeat before her left foreleg can breach the surface of the trickling water.

She waits there by the river for some time, breathing deeply to calm herself and listening out for her daughter. But there is something – or someone, rather – else on her mind as well.

If only he would appear right now, then we could get this mess sorted out.