A mist of rain fell silently onto the dense canopy over Paradise, where it beaded and rolled in heavy droplets to spatter on the dark earth. A net of glittering pinpricks of water rested over Fell’s mane as he stood beneath a break in the trees, watching the flat grey sky above. Uninterrupted by the heavy vegetation, the rain whispered down in this spot to land directly on the young stallion in a silken sheet of tiny drops. He felt some way about this situation — about standing in the only place the rain would mist lightly down on him, rather than plop rudely onto his back after collecting on the wide leaf of some tree until it weighed itself down — but the black stallion did not have even the mental vocabulary to describe the feeling. Instead, it came to him as colors.

He felt… blue. But not in a bad way.

Much as the rain had collected in the leaves around him, enough finally collected in his eyelashes for him to instinctively blink. The rain rolled down his face like a heavy tear, and somehow, he took this as a sign to move along.

The world was no more shadowed as he left the break in the jungle canopy. Overcast skies cast little light over Paradise anyway, and there was a thick, foggy nature to the air around him as he slipped like a big shadow through the trees. He had only ever known Paradise, but his curiosity for the world around him had grown as he had, and somehow this felt like the right time to slake that particular thirst.

He knew of the territories neighboring his home, but had never crossed the borders. There was something particularly enticing about the Ridge that seemed to draw him to its edge today, and though he had often gazed into the ascending jungle of his neighbor, envisioning the characters of Nyimara’s stories and sampling her fury toward the place, today he did not stop to simply look. The young stallion continued as though the border did not exist, his feathered hooves leaving deep gouges in the damp earth even at a walk, his watchful yellow eyes taking in the unfamiliar surroundings with something akin to joy.

Despite the venom in Nyimara’s words when she spoke of the devils that dwelled in the Ridge, the territory itself did not seem evil to the Marwari stallion. It did not seem very happy, either. It felt… grey.

As he had advanced into the humid forest of the Ridge, his curled ears had picked up little but the sounds of a few birds and small earth-dwelling creatures. Now, as he slowed to a halt to listen, a new sound emerged. One lone set of hooves carried a stranger through the jungle, and as the young stallion moved forward to investigate the noise, he caught sight of its source.

Another young stallion, the color of fire, moved swiftly through the green. He was built similarly to the black one, and the Paradise youth was quickly reminded of his father. The red stallion was likely a brother, he realized, but he’d have to get a closer look. The black stallion rolled into motion like an enormous cat. He could not call out for his brother to stop, so he had to hope the sound of his hooves in pursuit was enough to grab the fire-colored stallion’s attention.