It was a new an interesting adventure! The filly plunged into the winter waters and swam from the Crossing. She was nearly a year old and her mother had finally allowed her to swim off island, figuring it was going to to happen sooner or later anyway. At first she laughed and chuckled, riding the occasionally rough waves as they bobbed her body up and down. As much as she had been constantly running on the island, plowing through snow, and prancing in the creek waters of the Falls, nothing could have prepared her muscles for the hard swim she had volunteered for.

Foolishly, she had passed other islands, going wherever her thought process decided to take her. The varnished filly stepped onto the shores of the Salem and shook her body free of the excess moisture, stunned that only more was falling from the sky. It was the middle of winter, but this place was warm on her flesh. She dropped her head to the sand and pushed it gently with her nose. It was a different color than snow, warmer than snow, but moved a lot in the same fashion. She knew the beaches on the Crossing and had even played on them! Sand was not a completely foreign concept, but as her chocolate eyes scanned the horizon she was stunned by the idea that the beaches did not stop. It was almost frightening. ...almost.

Taika let the feeling sink in for a moment before she squealed in her high pitched voice of a young girl. Flailing her forelegs into the air, the Vulcan filly dashed off in whichever direction she happened to be facing. It was glorious to be able to feel the rain on her face in the winter season. Truly the world was strange, and this island only proved there was so much more to the world to explore the magic of!

Traversing the sands was a struggle for the girl who had only known solid ground, rocky mountains in fact, but eventually she had made her way to the desert oasis. As the waters had risen she found her heels sinking into the shallow mud. The satisfying squelching noise resounded as she pulled her hooves out of the muck. Head up, she studied the mud, one ear quirked back in considerable concern. From the effort it took not to get caught in the reasonably damp sands, and the struggle to get out of the mud, she dared not venture further into the oasis. Instead she scampered around it to where she found trees and vegetation. Curious, she poked her nose in this or that, trying to see if any of the fantasies she had come to know and love in her home had come to inhabit this place.

With the age of a year, but the innocence of a lifetime, she explored this new place as the rain fell into her already damp coat.