❀

Hazel watched Liland leave without comment. He had been nice, but she could not bring herself to trust him. No amount of allowed freedom was truly freedom when one was owned like an object. Why did they bother trying to make it sound sweet? "Stallions should just tell the truth, and not pretend like they see us as people," she said out loud, but not to anyone in particular, as Liland disappeared toward the ocean. "I’m sure it would have been an easy life. Maybe he wouldn’t have given me a foal. But it still wouldn’t have been MY life." With that, she turned to Lagertha and Mjöllnir, catching onto the colt’s infectious excitement for his home. Her discomfort was beginning to crumble and blow away. The Peak sounded lovely.


❀

Though she had been fairly well rested during the interaction with Liland and the Peak residents, her fatigue from her initial swim began to catch up with her as she followed Lagertha and Mjöllnir to their home. The climb was straightforward, a path already worn into the earth as soil slowly hardened into stone and only the hardiest of trees continued to grow. But it was steep, and Hazel was exhausted, and she fell behind little by little, hoping Lagertha and her son did not leave her behind while simultaneously disliking the thought of them having to slow down for her. She did not want special treatment. She knew she had to keep up, no matter how her legs ached.

Hazel was unsure how much more she could take when finally the path seemed to level out a bit. They stepped into the palm of the mountains, held high towards the clouds as if being offered to the storm. It was harsh, and the ledges and stones and cliff faces were sharp and unwelcoming and grey.

Hazel thought it was beautiful.

Despite the dominating, bleak stone surfaces, the sooty mare spotted plant life growing everywhere. Rough grass and shrubs grew stubbornly out of the hard ground and even out of the walls of rock that rose around them. Hazel knew there was more to the Peak than what she could see right now, and she desperately wanted to explore it, in defiance of her screaming hooves and legs. She was standing beside Mjöllnir now, and she turned to him with a look of awe. "This is your home?" she asked in disbelief. "It’s amazing."

Hazel