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

Her amber gaze followed him as he prowled through the low-lying valley.

He moved like a predator, unlike the lazy bachelor stallions who'd spent several seasons here as captives. This one was from somewhere else. This stallion came here with a purpose, it seemed.

Wasp's jaws clenched as she eyed him from up the mountain. She leaned against a flat boulder, enjoying the warmth it absorbed from the sun overhead. But her muscles bunched instinctively under her dark brown hide as she watched the stallion creep further into Vulcan territory. He was still just out of reach - if she acted now, well, he could still turn tail and likely outrun her. So despite the stammering of her heart in her chest, she remained frozen, watching him from her higher vantage point.

Soon the stranger's eyes seemingly locked onto Impa and a pale, Nordic mare. Wasp swallowed hard and sucked in a deep breath through her whiskered nostrils. His pace picked up, and he circled around them. The moment his legs and hooves cut through the air, the Prime Minister of the Peak kicked into motion. Her wide, flat hooves moved expertly down the rocky path, heaving her thick body toward the grasses below. Her ears hid in a bed of black mane as her pace quickened from a trot into a three-beat canter. Her eyes narrowed on the steely stud - rage bubbling in her chest now as she watched him lash out at the mares. He would pay for this.

Wasp bounded forward, pushing her wide frame in between the mares and the stallion, not once wincing at the thought that she, instead, would take on the onslaught of his attacks. She grunted lowly before forcing her weight onto her hind end and lashing out at the stallion in a short-half rear - her joints cracking as she kicked back and forth. "Get the fuck out of here!" She shouted in the form of a shrill whinny. By the time all four hooves were on the ground again, she was lunging forward at him, her lips peeled back to reveal a set of yellowed teeth. She snapped at him every chance she got, always pushing forward, in hopes of forcing him farther back.

Wasp was too busy warding off the stallion to look back at Impa or the Fjord mare, to know if the stallion had hurt them. But she fought back against him with every bit of fury that she had, nonetheless.

W A S P