She wasn't sure what she was sad about this time.

Was it the disappearance of the ridge leaders, hades, or the fact she still could not find her father again?

Seasons had come and gone for the young mare, just as the familiar faces she'd been use to did as well, her heart breaking with each new face that could not replace the ones she called her family. Chary was here though, the woman of the sea, the one holding strong against the unknown future of the ridge. The last bit of glue holding them all together. She remembers the woman well, a sea siren, the words she'd spoken that day to hades ringing true that she had indeed come back for them.

The waves lapping at her legs bring her back to the forefront, a pale face leaning down to feel the sea spray across her warmed skin, the leering sun above hot in the beginning of summer this time around. The land behind her had been suffocating or else she'd been tucked away. Here on the beach she felt at ease, letting the push and pull of the tides cool her messy emotions. So long she'd kept herself away from them all, the new ones and Chary, biting her tongue and stealing away to the furthest edge of the ridge where she couldn't be a bother; whether it was for her own benefit or theirs remains to be seen.

A seagull cries above, and she finds herself looking up to watch as they ride the sea breeze above, not a care in the world. Free. She too was free but was she really? What had she done in her young life so far except to look for horses that clearly did not want to be found, and she dared not venture to where she'd last left her mother, unable to look the older woman in the face after failing to find their family members.

And yet while everything inside her wanted to break and crumble to dust among the sand she was sinking into and rest her head on a bed of seashells, there remains a fire in her that surges forth as the slightest hint of change to her otherwise peaceful world comes forth, someone discovering the sad girl on the beach at long last. She dare not turn, the skin along her back itching with the feel of their eyes on her, and if she did turn she'd be forced to meet that gaze.

"Go away," her tone rivals what her heart wants, the love it so desperately needed to set things right. Anger made it better, made her thoughts clear and not muddled. White strands of her tail, damp from their dip in the surf snap against the back of her legs like a whip, frustration seeping out the longer she faced away; a coiled spring ready to move if she had to.