a new world hangs outside the window
beautiful and strange
it must be I've fallen awake
I must be

She didn't know what to expect. But something was tugging at her heart strings and told her to return. Wasp left the humid air and warm sand behind at Atlantis, and kicked through the surf until the hazy top of the Peak came into view on the Crossing Isle. It felt oddly warm to see it after all these weeks away. Even though Wasp feared she'd find the terrain just as desolate as it was when she'd left it before, it was still the only home she'd ever known.

Her journey to Tinuvel and then to Paradise on Atlantis had thrown the young mare some unexpected curveballs. She certainly didn't anticipate her trek to be quite so lonely. That's why she'd left the Peak in the first place, wasn't it? Her mother was gone. Bozena came and went. She didn't need or want a babysitter, and she was tired of feeling alone. But the horses she met along her journey showed the naive mare just how cruel the world could be. She watched as Liland was stripped of his home and title, and forced to flee with his family. She met the offending stallion's loyal son. And then another manipulative brute in Atlantis. They all shared massive egos, well, maybe not Requiem. But they all certainly were selfish, forever scheming for ways to get ahead, even if that meant inflicting pain on someone else.

The latter was a concept that Wasp still struggled to understand. Why? Wasn't there a better way? But every time she had the opportunity to ask a stallion such a question, none were able to come up with a worthy answer. It seemed they enjoyed what they did. And that was motivation enough to keep moving.

The dark, heavy-set mare rose from the ocean on the Crossing Isle, and took steady, methodical steps toward her home. She didn't dally. Something in her longed for the familiarity of the thin air and rocky terrain.

But when she crept into the valley at the base of the Peak, she was greeted by a familiar, intruding musk. Cullen.

She found the stallion attempting to round up Merete. Wasp took off after Cullen, however, colliding with him and tangling her cascading legs into his. She kicked and bit with all her might, remembering the lessons Bozena had taught her in self defense. But the young, inexperienced mare was no match for the Lagoon Boss. He beat on her until she was exhausted, then rounded up Merete all the same and left her bloodied and defeated.

It felt foolish to cry, but Wasp couldn't stop the tears as they streamed from her amber eyes. Why was everything so hard? She missed her mother terribly. And she'd let the few remaining souls of the Peak down today.

W A S P