Impa came upon the pair during her descent down the mountain.

She was startled to see two strangers collected together on one of the rockier outcrops that dotted the Peak, and for a moment recalled a time when she had stood in such a space with the hard gold mare, Anath. Neither of these two looked familiar to her, aside from the stickly black-and-silver one. Him? Here? Not on her watch. Nostrils flared to pick up the scents of the two horses, Impa strode down the mountainside with her head tilted to the left to give her seeing eye the benefit of a wider point of view. Even before she reached the pair she knew she was wrong, and that the silver black horse who stood on her mountain was a mare and not the despicable Akhal-Teke who’d nearly broken her in the Lagoon.

Impa’s hide had hardened significantly since that encounter. She was older now, striding into her tenth year of life, and she held her head high as she stopped beside the two mares. The half-blind mare had lived on this mountain for years and she was eager to welcome two potential new herd members into her home. “Welcome,” she said, aware she might be interrupting. Just because she hadn’t heard the two talking did not mean they hadn’t been, but there was no help for it. She offered each mare a wide smile. “If you’re looking for the Peak, you’re on it.”