This was not the proud independent mare he remembered. A single earlobe flickers backwards as she offers him a shaky greeting, her smile a mask to cover the torrent of emotions that lay beneath it. She apologizes for showing up on his shores without invitation and he gives her a hard snort a single forelimb stomping as he stretches his proud head forward to nudge her shoulder companionably. "Do not apologize Wasp, I consider it a surprising pleasure to see you here. I told you before you were always welcome to visit and I meant my words." he adds tugging a straying strand of her mane. He did not like seeing her like this. Though she was far more lively than Macabre was, still he could see the similarities in mother and daughter right down to the calm collected reserve for which they both held themselves. But not this mare who stood before him now. Defeated. She sighs and steps off, implying that she wished to walk and talk together for a spell. Obliging, the tall silver bay stallion falls into step along side her, listening quietly as she begins. He had assumed that she found Macabre and Cherish, they seemed rather adamant that they were destined for the forests of Luthien. He only assumed that afterwards they would be returning to the Peaks but perhaps not. Her voice quivers now as despite himself emerald eyes flit to her own. Though never does a tear trickle from her eyes still they are there in the glistening that arises as she speaks. The Lagoon. He knew them well, perhaps not nearly as well as she did from the sounds of it but well with Warsaw's rise of war he had become more and more acquainted with Cullen as of late.

Ears fall back as Wasp continues on, her pace beginning to slow to an ambling walk, pain flashing through her eyes as she does her best to hide the bruised shoulder from him. He glances at her now, noting the scuff marks of a stallion's hooves, the slight swell of her bay skin stretched taut over muscle. For all her determination, she hide the brunt of it well... but not from him.

But it is not the painful marks meant to bring sorrow to the eyes of one like him It is the resignation in her voice. Now he knew Warsaw and Cullen would expect him to force her back, to condemn her way of life and shatter the cracked mare that walked alongside him now. He could not. It was Wasp. He stops now, dark ears burying beneath the thick mantle of his cream and caramel colored mane as he lifts his head high. Multifaceted eyes fix her now with a hard gaze, a single brow raising, "And?" he inquires, his question lingering between them and the silence that suddenly seemed to have built. No gulls cry in the air above, no parrots squeak and rattle in the branches of the deep woods. No bugs or chirping creatures sing their songs through the dense underbrush. All is quiet, as though the very island waited on halted breath to hear his words. "Cullen beat you... but did he break you?" he asks, a hardness to his words as he stretches his muzzle forward to bump against her cheek. His eyes meet hers, fire burning in the depths, the beast growling hungrily on the eve of war. "You will only fail if you give up the faith. How many times do you think I have been beaten back? How many times has a lesser stallion won a fight that should have been mine? I assure you more times than I can count. The battles you lose, they are not meant to be your downfall but a mere lesson. A test of your will and cunning. If you are ready to bow down and break now than perhaps you are not the right leader for the Peak. I see better than that... or at least I thought I did." he murmurs, his tones quiet as he stares into her eyes, waiting to see if the weight of his words would bring back the fiery mare he had met on his shores those many moons ago.