The world's weight seemed to press more heavily upon him as he neared the familiar island of Atlantis, and Conquistador's limbs felt as if they'd been filled with lead. Though the saltwater made his body naturally buoyant, it was a struggle to keep his golden head from dipping beneath the surface of the sea. If it had - if he'd faltered for even a moment - the young stallion was certain that he would never find the strength to resurface. It would be easy to slip beneath the waves, to let them claim him as they'd claimed his father's body. If the gods were kind, perhaps his bones would sleep beside Debonaire's.

But the gods were cruel, and the mercy of death evaded him.

If his body felt heavy in the ocean, Conquistador was crushed beneath the burden of his own flesh when his hooves found the sand of Paradise's shore. With no strength left to stand, the golden boy stumbled and fell to his knees, and crouched there in the bone-white sand while his hind legs, too, folded beneath his body. How long he lay there, the young stallion could not say - as always, Atlantis seemed to exist beyond the sway of time. But the tide receded around him, and the hot breath of the wind slowly dried his damp coat, then continued inland to whisper through the palms. The sound lulled Conquistador, and his mind drifted from the grim reality of the present to the more pleasant memories of the past.

By the time the painted stranger arrived, the tawny palomino was suspended in the twilight between wakefulness and sleep - his senses aware, but not alert. It was the call that woke him - a sound both desperate and determined; heavy and hopeful. A sound that seemed to emnate from the core of Conquistador's own conflicting emotions - joy for Crow's newly-won freedom, but fear for his future, and the future of the place that would no longer be his home. Paradise was precious - he could not bear abandoning it, but if he did not return to the Lagoon, then Rade would claim him and trade Crow away both. He couldn't stay here; he had to go back, if only for her sake.

But he was determined to drive off this last invader before he left.

His dark brown eyes blinked open, and Conquistador lurched upright on legs that were as weak and wobbly as a newborn foal's. It didn't take long to find the golden-and-white figure standing at the far end of the beach. The other boy looked as young as he, though there was a confidence in his bearing that Conquistador had never mastered. And beneath that, something more - something the solid palomino recognized as the same burden that pressed down on his own body, aging him beyond his years.

His doubts melted away, and Conquistador nickered a response to the gold-and-white stranger. Shaking the sand from his tawny coat, the small, slender stallion trotted toward Braylen, neck arched and head held high. It felt strange to approach another stallion with these subtle expressions of authority - like he was wearing someone else's skin. "Welcome to Paradise. I'm Conquistador." He paused, and then asked hesitantly, "Are you looking for something?"

His brown eyes flicked toward the horizon for a brief moment before returning to the painted palomino's face. The sun had begun its slow descent, marking the short time remained before he must return to his new brothers.

Counting the last, precious hours of his life in Paradise.