When Oswin was little all she ever wanted was to explore the chain of islands which made up the home she was born in. She waited until she was a yearling to ask her mother to take her from Luthien to somewhere new for the day, but her mother refused. Oswin began to ask frequently but was refused time and time again with little explanation other than the world was a dangerous place and she was safe in the Prairie. At two years old Oswin had been on the cusp of running away in order to see the world when her mother came and told her she, her father, and whoever else wished to accompany them would be leaving the islands completely.

Her world expanded from one small island to a great stretch of miles upon miles of new places to explore. It was as frightening as it was wonderful and Oswin took to it with a passion. Oswin was happy and no longer attempting to separate herself from her mother and so, Oswin’s mother was happy.

But days crawled into weeks crawled into months until Oswin’s vigor for the great wide world had dimmed significantly and she found what she missed most were the islands and the community there. It took months of convincing her mother (even though Oswin was already three and well into becoming a mature adult) until finally she was allowed to return.

She found the Peak and settled in much as she always thought she would and then, a few days later, stood with a wide grin on the shoreline, staring off to the shapes of an island in the distance. An exuberant cry left the gold and white girl as she plunged into the chilly, early-autumn ocean and kicked her legs out from under her to cut a path to the island in her line of sight.

Though her muscles ached as she climbed ashore, Oswin could only look with bright, blue eyes filled with mirth at the land before her. Hard, cracked dirt met her hooves as the sand of the shoreline fell away. The heat pressed down on her body and the sun dried her coat far more quickly than it would on Crossing Isle. The further she walked the more sweat gathered in her armpits and along her neck but Oswin pressed forward, still marveling even as the topography hardly changed.

Great mounds of sand swelled up big as foothills and she surged through the shifting granules, trudging forward and knowing she’d come across someone soon. Oswin didn’t know who and she didn’t necessarily know whether or not she’d be welcome here, but she was finally having an adventure and she was loving every minute of it.