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 Áshildr had come from snow to be met by more snow which finally gave way to sodden puddles of thick, brown mud. She paid none of it any heed. Dried, crusted earth clung to her woolly belly, giving way to wet dirt down her legs and matting in the feathers of her feet so that all colour was completely undiscernible. Winter became spring and the bleak greys and whites of the landscape soon became vibrant shades of greens, yellows and pinks. They passed by her in a blur, her focus on one thing; the lost islands.
She was a tank of a horse, thickset and powerful and most definitely not to be reckoned with. While her brother had been marginally taller and possessed some of the thick muscling of a draft, she dwarfed him completely in girth; not that she knew it. Her brother was a stranger, the last time she had seen him it had been on their journey out of the islands after their mother’s death. She still remembered the look in Olaf’s eyes; the accusation. It was her fault Ársæl had been killed. She’d wandered off and the mountain lion had attacked, evidenced by bald patch at the bottom of her mane and the faded scars that clawed from the middle of her back, tapering off at the hip of her rightleg and the knee of the left. Ársæl had not been far behind but ultimately lost her battle. Her blind cousin had quickly pushed the wounded filly from the area and left with the rest of the family. Olaf had wanted to return to his father but stayed anyway, at least for a little while. A wolf had almost had him soon after he was born too, perhaps it was fate’s way of telling Kisei and Ársæl that they should not be having any more young. Ársæl paid the price.
Áshildr could not dwell on that however, she had business to attend to. Life had gotten in the way of her return but she had always planned to come back and explain herself to her father and brother; if either still stayed on the islands. She knew Olaf had left Ragnarök’s party with the intention of coming back so she hoped he would still be here, and that he may have forgiven her in their time apart. Kisei, she could not be sure about but she was sure he would not have given up the forest easily so that would be her first stop in looking for him. First, she needed to take a few precautions.
She knew that the peak was a herd for women and if she placed herself within their ranks, she would be safe from any stallions attempting to lay claim on her. While she was fully capable of fighting them off, it would make her quest that much easier if she could pass through each of the territories without any fuss. As such, she found herself climbing up the steep, well-trodden, mountain path of the peak, her wide hooves eating up the rock face with ease despite the stiffness in her left leg where the puma's claws had seemingly damaged a tendon. The scars from the mountain lion and a few general life wounds were not the only war wounds to scatter her body though. As a three year old she’d been attacked again, cementing her hatred for large cats. A snow leopard had caught her in the midst of resting, obviously seeing her as an easy target. She’d taken most of Áshildr’s right ear and part of the right nostril as well and left her with deep claw marks on her neck and right shoulder. Another ran from her forehead down to the torn nostril. All in all, the mare was a patchwork of scars and resembled an old doll that had been ripped and sown up repeatedly over the years. She liked to think it gave her character and if nothing else, it proved she was a survivor.
A familiar scent hit her nostrils as she ascended the peak though for a while she struggled to remember who it belonged to; certainly one of the other foals that had been born in the forest around the same time as her own birth. Distantly she remembered Kohle’s scent and Redbird had been the colt so that only left Jezibelle, though she could remember very little except the name. She halted on a flat that seemed well frequented and sent out a loud bellow for whatever horse commanded the peak and dealt with the new arrivals. While she waited, her thick black tail cracking impatiently across her rump, she reasoned that she would track Jezibelle down after being initiated. With any luck she may even be the one in charge and was sure to be able to shed some light on the whereabouts of their father. Silently, Áshildr applauded herself for being so clever. 
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