Just like the night Vadim had stolen into the Lagoon and found Mercury, he again trespasses into his old home in stealth and silence. Unlike before, Psych’s scent is nowhere to be found, and he wonders what has happened to the old Boss? Had someone finally gotten tired of the painted bastard? Or had age simply caught up with him? Either way, a sense of jealousy squeezed itself around the pale stallion’s heart. If anyone had struck Psychedelic down, it should have been him. But bound and chained to another Island, could that have been taken from him as well?


Shaking his head, Vadim had to refocus himself. The missing Boss wasn’t what he had come for anyways. The fresh scent of a mare helped him to remember his true purpose for being in the Lagoon. Trailing in her hoof prints, it led him back to the border and along its edge. Only when the shape up ahead slowed, letting him gain ground, did he recognize the markings of Isla. So much had changed with the shorter mare, that he might not have known it was her if not for the unmistakable white against red roan. Letting out a low nicker, Vadim didn’t know if she would wait for him, but he hurried after her as if she wouldn’t.


Just like Isla had changed, so had Vadim. Being on Salem had trimmed some of his physic, making him leaner from the less than lush vegetation. His pale gold was now nearly sun-bleached white, and his green eyes; the anger and bitterness that had filled him before nearly nonexistent now. Rather, he expected it to be in her gaze instead of his. Which only made him feel guiltier than before, knowing it was fully his fault.


“I’m sorry.” Vadim says it, not knowing if she would actually hear it or not. She deserves the apology, and much more, but he cannot fight for her. He no longer holds the rank to do so. To right his wrongs in a show of violence much like he had done to her. Ears splayed out to the side, Vadim almost forgets where they are, and to watch their surroundings. But what can they do to him at this point? Brothers that were supposed to be loyal to him (except maybe Nahawi), that had not come for him anymore than they had come for him stuck on Atlantis by his first captor. Vadim already recognizes the betrayal, even if he won’t speak it aloud. “I know it will not right my wrongs, but perhaps what I’ve come to do now will….”


Whether she chooses to take a pound of flesh in payment for her torment, to spit her rage at him for what she has endured, Vadim is willing to stand and take it. Knowing that he deserved her loathing for putting her here like an unwilling pawn piece, and then deserting her. The pale stallion can only hope that after she had finished with him, that she will give him the opportunity to share in what could lead to her freedom.