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The last few months had been a blur. Hazel hardly remembered her life before the Peak, though she was young and did not have much to remember anyway. She thought of herself now as a proper mountain horse; she knew where most of the good spots on the Peak were, and how to get there without slipping. Mostly she had Mjöllnir’s company, and sometimes Lagertha’s, but other than the two she had met at the very beginning, Hazel adventured alone.

It wasn’t that she was shy (though she was) that kept her from interacting with the other Peak mares. Mostly she was simply intimidated by them, and frightened by the stallions who sometimes visited. She knew there were stallions who lived on the Peak as well, though she had learned that they were here temporarily, and she almost never saw them. Mostly they kept to themselves, probably sulking at the fact that they had been taken captive by a bunch of mares. Though she found it a little bit funny, Hazel did mostly take it seriously, and she did not bother the Lagoon captives or the mares who kept them in line. She was nervous about both parties, but she also had things to do with Mjöllnir - places to explore, rodents to chase, rocks to kick down the steep sides of the mountain.

Hazel kept herself occupied on the Peak. She was almost never bored, but despite this, her curiosity for the islands below steadily grew. She wouldn’t dream of exploring them alone, and she had never brought up such a curiosity to Mjöllnir, but one morning she worked up the courage to bring it up. Maybe he would go on an adventure with her! Or at least tell her stories of the other islands; that would satisfy her, for now. She certainly wasn’t interested in leaving the Peak and all of its beauty.

No, it wasn’t that she felt pushed out, though even now as she followed the narrow trail in search of her friend, she took the route she knew would be undisturbed by the other Vulcans. Truthfully the root of her curiosity lay in the fact that she still felt very much like a filly. She was too shy to grow up, or so she felt. Too shy and also too coddled by the safety the mountain provided. It was her fear of the outside that drew her to it, and she planned to confess this to Mjöllnir once she found him. She considered how she would word such a bold thought as she trotted up the steep incline toward a grassy meadow, one of the first places the young stallion had shown her.

Hazel