Impa wondered if Mouse’s words were true no matter what the relationship was between family. Losing her father hurt —Kisei, where are you?— but Impa had never been close to the mare who’d birthed her. Did losing Cecilia hurt? No, because there had been Mazurka, and before Impa had been abandoned by him on Tinuvel there had been her sire. The lack of closure with the ones she loved was what pulled at her heart now. When Mouse pulled away, Impa glanced at her. She knew the gesture was not one of distance. The blanketed mare was relieved to find their friendship remained solid despite her disappearance.

“We didn’t spend much time together,” Impa admitted, stifling a sigh as she pushed her emotions aside to consider in a more solitary moment. “Though I’d love to meet her. Get to know her, a bit, before she goes running off in the world.” Impa pressed her lips together. “Do you know what she plans to do?” she asked. The draft mare was not so delusional as to assume everyone wanted to live in the Peak.

It took her a moment to place what, exactly, Mouse was referring to. Once she made the connection, however, Impa dipped her head in a slow nod. “There is very little I would not do for you,” she confessed in a low voice. Her short grulla companion was the closest thing Impa had to family anymore, and a friend she held very dearly in her heart. Impa would fight for any of the mares on the Peak regardless of her own opinion of them. For Mouse, she would make the vengeance personal. “Besides,” she continued with a lopsided smile and a lighthearted note in her voice, “Someone’s got to start whalloping those assholes. If we won’t stand up to them, who will?” She bumped her shoulder against Mouse companionably. Whether it was true or not, Impa was of the opinion that the Lost Islands were full of mares who’d been beaten or coerced into submission and were content to live less-than-fulfilling lives because that’s what was expected of them. The strongest mares she’d met had lived at the Peak.

It was time to turn the tide.