And like that she appears.
There is no bugle from her lips or proud display of prowess. Not even the gulls seem to mind the presence of the rose-colored mare who appears; manifesting from the shadows with the rest of the world around her in the early morning light. Pale eyes survey the scene around her, taking in the familiar landscape and noting the ever so slight changes brought upon by summer storms and the constant buffet of winds. Paper thin nostrils flare as Khar releases a single, silent breath. A smile. It is faint, hardly recognizable on her delicate ash dusted features but it is there nonetheless. Though wanderlust had drawn her far from these shores, it felt good to return to familiar shores at last.
Salt air cloys at the ends of her charcoal tresses, tugging free the knotted ends and twisting them around invisible fingers. Sea foam gathers around her small dark hooves as finally the mare moves, drawing herself further away from the ocean’s beckoning waves and closer to the sweet aromas of dry land. Like leviathans of old, the snow-capped peaks of the mountain rise beyond the red and green and yellow hues of the deciduous forest. It was not all that long ago that she had walked every inch of those granite slopes and explored every rocky opening that would allow her slender figure to squeeze through. Like a mother welcoming home a wayward child, the peaks gaze down upon her in glistening silence, causing her to drop her gaze in shame. She had abandoned them. The peak mares and the peaks themselves. She had let the death of her child, as feeble and unlikely as it was to survive, force her gaze beyond the islands and to distant lands. She had thought a fresh start was all she might need to ease the pain that plagued her, hoped that distant lands might draw her attention and fill the void that manifested itself beyond the reach of her teeth.Gazing about her now she becomes all the more aware that these islands are her home in more ways than one.
Dried leaves crackle beneath the weight of her hooves as Khar’pern blinks away the mountain's colossal presence and instead focuses around her. The commons. Many a time she found herself here on business for the peaks, preventing greedy stallions from forcing their claim upon unsuspecting mares. Where others might avoid these lands, she had always crossed the threshold with proud and daring eyes. Even now, without the backing of the mountain mares behind her, Khar cannot help but to lift her head proudly, glancing towards the strangers with daring eyes and ears bent back in warning. They would find no gentle, submissive creature in her. She is a jaguar, a panther, a beast. She will not be caged.
