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

It was difficult to leave Bacardi behind, but not as hard as she anticipated. She was perturbed by this - the painted stallion was the only family by blood she had left. He had cared for her when she had no one else, and still, she walked away. Her amber eyes looked out over the open ocean and she easily left Tinuvel in her wake with no real plans to return any time soon.

During her short stay in the Cove with Bacardi and his family, Wasp thought long and hard about the strange and random offering Drogon had given her before he, too, fled the Bay. Wasp hardly remembered him, but it seemed she had made some kind of lasting impression on the young stallion. He left the door open for her to follow him to Atlantis - to Paradise. And while Wasp did not formally accept nor decline the offer before he left, she never stopped thinking about it.

The last time the dark mare had seen Rougaru was in the valley of the Peak, when she stood between Drogon and his dam and the silver bay stallion himself. Before then, it was in the midst of the war, in which Rougaru fought against her and her allies for their freedom and peace. Rougaru's kindness and mentorship in her formative years made her feelings for the stallion now quite murky. He stood for everything she hated and fought against. Would he welcome her here and now, after everything that had transpired?

She swam haphazardly, her joints aching with every cycle through the current. While Wasp had recovered mostly from her injuries sustained shortly before her return, she still moved with a sharp hitch in her gait and relative pain. She wondered now if those ailments were here to stay forever.

The dark mare gave her coat a good shake as she emerged onto the shoreline, her nostrils flaring in the humid, salty air. Two ears flicked forward as she peered into the dark jungle.

W A S P