The dark brown mare was no longer certain if she was running after her sister, or away from the truth.

Iris blinked, squinting against the searing light of the sun. When had it risen? Through the dim grey haze of fatigue - and the heavier, suffocating cloud of her sorrow - she struggled to remember. Had it been one day since Eve had been taken, or two? By the ache that permeated every inch of her body, it may have been longer still. The blanketed mare felt as if she’d been wandering these woods for an eternity, the blinding sheen of her tears causing her to stumble often and fall more than once. But those tears have since turned to ash on her cheeks, and her voice was reduced to a raspy whisper that still, sometimes, murmured her sibling’s name. Eve. Eve.. And though she had no name to call out for her, in the silent chamber of her mind, Iris howled and screamed in grief for the filly she’d been too late to save. The one whom she’d witnessed being buried.

Her fault. All her fault.

Another blink, and she was clawing her way up a scree-covered slope, then sliding back on hooves that scrabbled and slid in the sifting of loose stone. The mountains that had previously been distant, ominous teeth loomed nearer now, close enough to trap her dirt-caked figure in their stony grin and crush it. The seal brown mare registered only dimly that she had crossed into Vulcan territory - the thought buried beneath the sheer feral desperation to climb, even knowing that she was too weak. Again and again she rose, sometimes coming within a hair’s breadth of the top - only to succumb to gravity’s pull, her skinned knees stinging as more debris was ground into the shallow cuts. What had even driven her to go this way, of all directions that she might have chosen to wander? As Iris paused to gather her waning strength for another attempt, she sought to unravel the mystery of her own motivations - perhaps hoping to find a reason to give up.

Her sides rose and fell like the bellows of some great furnace, and each breath she drank in contained the answer. Eve’s scent lingered here - fading amidst the cold unfeeling rock, but enough to ascertain that the roan mare had been this way. Less familiar - and less welcomed - was the pale stallion’s cologne that clung to it, sour in Iris’s nostrils. Had he been within striking distance, she would have - would have - what? Though she had resorted to killing the stallion who’d held her mother and her captive, Gnome’s eldest daughter was not certain that she could take that path again. But it was better to embrace that spark of anger within her - that desire to hurt the creature who had harmed her family - than it was to allow the pain and sorrow that she felt to consume her. Fury gave her strength, and strength impelled her up the gravelly path again. This time she charged recklessly forward, like a bull bison with a rival in his sights, and had nearly gained the level ground beyond in seconds.

Unbidden, the image of the champagne stallion dragging her niece into the hole rose to the surface of Iris’s swirling pool of thoughts. She faltered, her white-stockinged forelegs carving deep furrows in the yielding surface of stone and dust in a final effort. And then abruptly he was tumbling down the slope - rolling over and over, like a clump of dead thistle borne in the wind. Unable to check the speed of her downward plummet, the dark brown mare continued in this manner until she was deposited roughly on the soil below.

For a long time, Iris did not move. She just lay there and silently wept in both heartache and hatred, until the storm of her tears had finally passed. If there was one benefit to her jarring fall, it was that the impact had rattled her enough to restore coherent thought. By the time she picked herself up, the blanketed mare had decided to simply detour around the obstacle that had defeated her. To the east - inland - the rise and fall of the landscape was more gradual. While she would not be able to follow the faint traces of her sibling in that direction, there was a chance she’d be able to loop back around toward the shore and pick it up again further down. Laying her ears back determinedly - and firmly ignoring the damp trail of tears that still trickled down her cheeks - Iris took a deep breath and began to follow the curving spine of the Peak, letting the well-worn path carry her ever upward.