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

The skin along her withers twitched with vigor and it shuddered its way down her spine. The mare felt prickly all over and it was odd and uncomfortable. It wasn't like the stoic Peak mare to be so forthcoming and so vulnerable. But these were hardly normal times. Wasp was just so tired of feeling this way, downtrodden and angry. She wanted this ugly cloud over her head to finally lift so she could get on with her life. But nothing she did could seemingly lift her out of the heartbreak she harbored over the loss of her dam.

Wasp sighed deeply, and shuffled her weight over all fours anxiously as she settled into conversation with Adelheid. The mare also seemed somewhat uncomfortable - her expression sweeping from hardened and chiseled to slightly more relaxed, to stony again. A fleeting smirk passed by Wasp's dark, whiskered lips when Adelheid admitted she wasn't so easy to be around either. The Peak certainly attracted a lot of those characteristics in its members. But as their conversation went on, it revealed that the two had much more in common than most.

The bay mare's ears flicked forward and back as she registered Adelheid's familial connection. It was so strange to meet so many mares who had been close to her dam, only to find out they were all related in some way. The more Wasp learned about this connection to Jetta and Inka, the more she wondered if Macabre deliberately chose Diamant as a way to cement her bond to this particular family. For so long, when she was younger, she'd always wondered what made these mares so great? Why them? She knew Inka and Jetta took Macabre in when she needed a home - and family - the most. The Peak had changed the chestnut mare's life. But why Diamant? And if Macabre had loved this family so much, why had he been so distant - or more accurately, non-existent - in her life all these years?

Wasp watched Adelheid's face contort into anger again, and she snorted irritably, too. "Raised together?" She questioned, her eyes widening as she searched Adelheid's demeanor for more information. She bat her thick tail over her haunches again and welcomed the way Adelheid changed the subject. The mare tossed her head at the thought of the Lagoon, and sighed as she gathered her thoughts.

"The islands have changed over the years. And not for the better." She began, revisiting the memory of Argento's history lesson of the Peak and Lagoon antics. "Whatever healthy rivalry we had with the Lagoon changed under its current leadership. Cullen. He waged a war with two herd stallions over any territories lead by mares. Their pea-brains clearly couldn't handle this shift in gender dynamics." She said with a scoff. "Macabre vowed our help to the mare-led territories, like Persephone of the Forest. We fought with them to protect the idea of a mare's choice, and the value of her freedom."

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