When he arrived in the midst of winter with a coat not grown thickly enough for the harsh elements he thought that would be the greatest struggle he faced. He prevailed through winds that bit at his thin coat, through ice clumping and clinging to his fetlocks, and as the days stretched on and his summer fat thinned out – he prevailed. Confidence had been built within him from his survival, an assuredness that he would be better prepared, that his coat would grow in thicker and he would have learned where the best places were to linger in order to escape the words of storms.

Then, he’d suffered two large personal crises, one after the other. If Nephilim had thought it was winter that would try him, he learned otherwise very, very quickly.

He had separated himself from the herd which was not uncommon, given that he often took time away to patrol the borders of his territory or cross the channel to Crossing Isle while the weather was nice, but at the moment he was not on patrol. Nephilim was standing quietly to himself, the smell of rain in the air as the last drops settled against the ground and the soft whispering flutter of birds’ wings as a flock swept up from the trees and into the sky with its patches of blue and gray. His gold eyes drifted upward to watch the clouds drift quietly away, pushed on a breeze, and wondered if they might give a summer rain to another island.

Just beyond a cropping of those very trees the birds had flown from, Nephilim heard the all too familiar sound of hooves beating hard against the ground. One ear flicked and then his gaze pulled that way before, eventually, curiosity got the better of him. His tail cracked at his haunches, a ripple of creamy white, and he turned himself about to wind through the trees, branches clawing at his coat and itching places that his teeth couldn’t quite grab.

Just on the verge of leaving the dreary shadows, Nephilim stopped as his eyes hesitated on Hollowshank, one of the first of two who’d greeted him when he’d stepped into the Bay. A rumbling nicker didn’t quite open his mouth, but vibrated in his chest as his nostrils quivered, drinking her scent as he started forward again. “Hollowshank,” he greeted with her name and thought to the hooves he’d heard drumming against the earth, wondering if it had been her that was running about. “Enjoying the sunshine?”

It wasn’t his strongest greeter, he was quite aware, but for all his curiosities when it came to Hollowshank it had seemed he’d always been thrown another distraction and hadn’t quite been afforded the opportunity to get to know her.