Impazienza recognized Lyden’s name from her discussion with Skylar earlier in the Peak. However, the business she attended to now had nothing to do with the pale painted stallion, and so she pushed all thoughts of what she knew of him out of her mind for now. “I am not your ‘dear,’” she said sternly before hoofsteps and a strong voice behind Impa turned her ear toward the approaching horse.
It was a mare, she saw, who moved in a wide half-circle around Impa’s seeing side before settling in front of her, rather like a wall. The black mare from the Peak glanced between the two horses, although her gaze lingered on the mare. Something in her voice had seemed familiar, but Impa couldn’t place it. “I am Impazienza, Prime Minister of the Peak. This was once my family’s home— first my grandsire’s, then my sire’s, and more recently my brother’s.” Impa’s ears pushed to the side and she looked beyond the two Forest horses. Her nostrils flared but her next inhale did not bring her any scent of Rurisk.
The half-blind mare shifted her weight and winced minutely at the pain that spiked through her right leg. It had been a long time since she’d been in a fight. The physical discomfort almost felt good, in a strange way— at least is was something new, something different from the emotional upheavals she had been experiencing lately. “You could say I’m just here to reminisce,” she added as her eyes dropped back to Lyden and the unnamed mare, offering them both a small smile. One could say that, but they’d be lying. Impa didn’t need to be in the woods to remember her history there.
Once Impa had a better idea of how her presence would be received by the other two, now that she had introduced herself, she might bring up her true reasons for being in the Forest again. Right now that could wait.
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IMPAZIENZA