He had forgotten... forgotten how tightly the grip of winter often held onto his father's lands, at times even into the early weeks of a young spring. Heated breaths puffed rhythmically upon the frosty air with each sure step that the mahogany bay stallion took through the thick blanket of snow covering the earth here. A prideful aura that cannot be taught showed in the stallion's carriage of himself - in the lofty height of his blade-adorned head and most of all the confidence in which he pushed forward into the depths of the Forbidden Dale through the drifts. Despite the fact the snow was knee-deep, the mealy-pointed rogue moved with a flashy, almost gaited stride, powerful muscles bunching and extending with distinguished ease.

Russet-toned lobes dance and flick atop the brute's poll, ember eyes wide and surveying the kingdom that was his by birthright. It had been so long. He hadn't meant for it to be. But here he was, the lost Prince of the Dale, trudging purposefully towards the very core of the home he had known as a colt, the home he had left unwillingly behind on the heels of his mother all those years ago. There was a both heavy familiarity and foreignness to it all - a surreptitious sensation of stepping straight into a scene from the past. Much had changed though in the five and a half years since Arakh last breathed the crisp, mountainous air of the Dale... much to delay and ultimately lead to his return. In so many ways, he was different... yet still the same proud colt that had been an eager student of his father's teachings. But he was home, truly and undeniably home.

These was his birthlands and by the right of being Rhaego's eldest surviving son, they would one day be his own. There was indeed a particular fondness Arakh held for Paraiso, for the time that he had lived there before his mother's death, but it was not the same as the sense of belonging which he felt here, amongst the wild valleys and hills. The air was brisker than he recalled, icier; but he pushed aside the thought with a harsh snort. It was the Dale and that's how it was, wild and unbound by the constraints of expectations. If anything, the chill only livened the brute's movements as he stretched out into a swift and long-strided gait, charging through the mantle of snow and sending it into a billowing cloud of white that almost entirely enveloped his surging hindquarters and silver-streaked tail. A wild and unchained grin dashed across the draft mix's muzzle as he lifted his obsidian blade high, in rapture at the pure thrill of exertion and power plowing through the snow, uninhibited and free. Arakh made for the forest without hesitation, a place he recalled that his father had often favored, and broke in between the trunks, dipping and dodging some before sliding to an abrupt halt a short ways in. Raven nares flare with great, huffing breaths as the stallion's eyes shift sharply around, taking a moment to get his bearings before picking up on a nearly invisible footpath that wove into the forest and carried the mealy king's lingering scent. Arching his muscular neck with determination, Arakh huffed and stepped out into a light trot down the winding trail...