She waited for summer. For as long as she could remember, she had waited for the turn of the season to finally become warm- for the sun to run loving finges across her pale haunches and remind her that there was always life outside of the cove. Even as the weather had most recently turned warmer, melting the snow from the trees and filling the scant forest that cling precariously to the peak's edge with the sound of dripping water, there was still a sort of cold that stuck around in the early mornings. In those early mornings, Arris would awaken from her bed and stand near-invisible in the cold mist of the mountain.

Iolar had taken to sleeping heavily once her daughter would give her some moments of respite, leaving the girl with the blue and white mottled skin to wander through the trees, her hooves clattering almost naturally against the stark shale on the ground. Sometimes the sounds of her footsteps would echo across the stone of the great mountain, and she would think that this was a haven- a place where she could rest and heal her wounds (emotional and physical) in the safety that the numbers of the peak had provided. This morning her skin crawled, her dreams were boring and every face that had appeared had been shapeless- save the familiar smiling face of her father. Oh, how glorious he had once been, a name that could be heard across the islands.

He had been a king, had he not? Were kings not supposed to be revered by their peers and worshipped by their kingdoms?

Her father had been no such man, he had instead amassed himself a large family and fell in love with his children over and over again, always offering to them king words and lovin touches. To say that Arris missed her family was to lie, for she ached to run across the soft gravel of the cove's shore, her sisters at her heels and her brother taking the lead, their laughter echoing off the great cliff in the distance that they were never to go near. They had been young and free, and they had been so foolish.

Now so many years later, as the morning mist bites into her skin with an uncharacteristically bitter cold, the daughter of the cove thinks warmly of her home and of the people that she had known and loved, remembering their names and faces before the cold disappeared.

As the sun slowly rose over the far ridge of the mountain, Arris began to explore the peak once more, hoping to find a comfortable place for her to graze with Iolar and Beanna, as they seemed to be the closest she was like to get to having a family again. This time, her wandering brought her to a great stone overhang, one that looked out over the sea and promised a handsome view of the sunset that was sure to come. She stood looking over the ocean and all the lands between here and there, she did not notice the pale general standing to her far right. Enjoying the view for as long as she dared before thinking it best to move on and continue her search for food and more comfortable shelter, she turns and finally spots the champagne mare, her eyes turned intently to the boiling waves of the sea. Somewhere down below them had to be a soul that the other woman was looking for but could not see. Inching closer to her, Arris wants to know her, to see the other horses of the peak and know that she had not brought her friend to an empty husk of a terrain.