For a time, Impa had lapsed back into normalcy. She had returned to the old routine of spending her days and nights near Mouse, not yet ready to step back into a position of authority and daunted by the idea of being welcoming when so few mares lingered for more than a season. And eventually, she had withdrawn.

Again.

She’d remained in the Peak this time, and while she did not reject company she did not seek it out, either. The black blanketed mare had spent most of her time standing still, hind hoof cocked and her barrel expanding slowly as she breathed meditatively. Any horse who came upon her would clearly see how introspective Impa was, and all efforts at conversation would be met with slow, inconsistent responses.

She felt lost.

Impa had felt lost ever since she’d been dumped at the Arch, abandoned without explanation among strangers when she was little more than a girl, headstrong and stupid enough to challenge the lead mare’s authority in an attempt to unleash her rage somewhere.

Today it was cold, colder than usual, and so she moved. Her legs felt stiff from how little she’d moved during the winter, and she relished the soreness of her muscles as she stretched them. Since a season of quiet reflection had not brought her any closer to finding her way, maybe it was better to keep her body as busy as her mind. And perhaps if she launched herself into bettering the islands in the only way she knew how, she could focus on something other than her own gaping loneliness.

Impa’s ears twitched at the sound of a frustrated cry carried on the wind. There was no time like right now to drag herself out of the emotional quagmire she’d been wallowing in for so long, and so she picked up her pace and jogged across the slanted surface of the mountain toward the source of the sound.

Kisei’s daughter could not say who, exactly, she had expected to see as she ventured across the mountain face and came upon the still-maturing form of a young mare, but the generous swath of white interrupted with spots that covered the bay girl’s hindquarters surprised her.

“You all right?” Impa called as she drew closer, slowing her pace to a walk before she paused a few feet away. Her head leaned habitually to the left, allowing her to see the girl with her good right eye, and her left ear swiveled to check for sounds of potential predators in the area. The cry she had heard did not sound frightened or pained, but there was no reason why she could not remain cautious.

Impa’s right eye wandered over the broad planes of the girl’s face and body, lingering on the blanket that mimicked her own and the heavy feathering that covered the bay mare’s toes. Her nostrils closed and she uttered a low snort, a short expulsion of breath that indicated her surprise. “Have you come from the Lagoon?” she asked suddenly. It was the last place she had seen her brother, and unless Cecilia had had another child that Impa had never met —which was quite possible, given that Impa knew nothing more about her younger sister except that she existed, probably— the half-blind mare of the Peak assumed that her spotted brother had bred. It made sense, given how the only horses she’d ever seen on these Islands with markings to match her own were the mare who birthed her and her younger brother.