Impazienza liked Derry. Where other newcomers she had greeted seemed unsure of themselves or lacked confidence, the Arabian that walked beside her seemed solidly self-aware and, more than that, she expressed an attitude of ambition— for the Peak, and not herself. While there was nothing wrong with a desire to better one’s standing in life or a herd, Impa found it refreshing to have her desires for the Peak supported by another. It had been a long time since someone had risen to her words like Derry, and responded with an enthusiasm that seemed to match her own.

Her first words made Impa smile. The two could not be more different, physically: she, dark and large and black with a bold white blanket slapped across her hindquarters and heavy hair falling on her hooves, and Derry, petite and slim but in no way fragile, and as pale as moonlight with darkness at her muzzle, groin, and eyes. Impa, half-blind but trying to pave the way for a future, and Derry, clear-eyed with twice the vision of the draft. She felt powerful suddenly, as if the muscles rolling in her shoulders and hips with each step had grown, and she felt a rising urge to rock her body forward and lash out with her hind legs. It would be a pointless gesture, however, so she quelled the urge and instead pulled her muzzle in toward her chest, arching her neck in a casual display of flexed muscles.

Derry stopped and Impa took one more step before she, too, halted on the slope. She turned her head, typically tilted to the left, and for once looked as if she did not have to compensate for being blind in one eye as she waited with patience for the Arabian to finish speaking. “Thank you,” she said, and her voice matched the softness of her companion’s. “I was Prime Minister of this Peak for a time, before some personal matters took me away from here. But I fully intend to resume my former position if the herd will have me.” She smiled, and it was rigid as her voice grew hard with the anticipation of righting innumerable wrongs done against their sex. “Welcome to the Peak, Derry. We are a collection of warriors and spies, of women who use their words as weapons. I think you’ll like it here.”