The blanketed mare lowered her head and pointed her ears forward to catch the newcomer’s introduction. She and the bay mare were almost of a height, with Impa standing just a bit higher, but it was nice to be faced with another horse —specifically a mare— who could look her in the eye without craning her neck. Impa was so tired of towering over everyone she came across. “Well met, Shira,” she murmured, before the callous note in Anath’s voice hooked one ear and turned it. Impa knocked her shoulder against the General and stepped forward, putting her thick body between the golden mare and the newcomer.

If she hadn’t been on such good terms with Anath, Impa would never have dared to rebuke the golden mare in the manner she had, in front of not one but two witnesses. But something had been gnawing at Impa since her return from the Forest, some kind of idea that she did not have to be tethered to her bitter, unfortunate past. That she did not need to let her anger and frustration leak into her interactions with others. Which, she could acknowledge now in retrospect, she had been doing every time she met someone new. There was a pulsing anger, an undercurrent of vanity and pride that she had let swamp her. And for what? To disdain and disparage others in a stupid and futile attempt to comfort herself and rationalize that she was better than her father.

Today, Impa would change her attitude. “Shira,” she said, and smiled. “I’d be interested in hearing what plans you have to restore the name of the Vulcans. We must have been prominent enough, once, to have caught the attention of a stranger to these lands. I would like to rise to that level again, and lift our sisters with us.” She glanced back at Anath, despite being blind in the eye directed at the General, and only then did she back up to her original spot. She whickered at Mouse, again inviting the small mare to join their circle. “I see potential here,” Impa told them all. “Ambition,” she thrust her muzzle at Shira. “Wisdom,” she tossed her head at Mouse. “Pride, tempered with humility.” Impa pressed her lips against Anath’s shoulder before indicating herself by ducking her head. “Think of all we could do,” she whispered, her dark gaze intense.