She was furious. So angry she felt as though she might implode from the severity of it, from the way it frothed inside of her veins like the sea after a summer storm. The feeling had built slowly in the way of Loupgaru's abandonment. Had festered and grown into something darker, more rancid, the longer he ignored her.

All she had wanted was to be loved. To be cherished. To be treated as if she mattered, not as if she were convenient to whichever of her lovers happened to be closest. She wanted to belong to someone the way she saw other's experience, the way she had thought she belonged to Fiero. And then to Khajiit.

And even, in some small way, had hoped to feel for Loupgaru.

But he was as useless and cold as the rest of them, his empty promises and heavy-lidded looks as deceiving as the honeyed words Fiero offered and the sensuous touches Khajiit had given. And so she had finally faced the awful, desperate truth that was the heart of her problem.

Men were garbage.

Worse than that, they weren't just passively awful but actively, intentionally terrible. They didn't just stink, they wafted their stink about on purpose, poisoning as many spaces as they possibly could until there was no safe place left in the whole of the Islands.

Or was there?

Her mind landed on the bitter conversation she'd shared with the gray matriarch of the Peak so many seasons ago. She hadn't been ready to give up on her delusions yet back then, hadn't been ready to give away the desire she'd held in her heart since she was just a little girl, still starry-eyed and hopeful that she'd find her prince charming.

But she was ready now.

Without a backward glance or any attempt to be stealthy, Switch abandoned the Inlet. Abandoned Loupgaru. Abandoned the mare that she had been, and strode ashore at the Peak, certain she had no other option. She doubted Loup would care enough to come, but still had to fight her every instinct to look behind her to see if he was there. He hadn't cared yet, so it didn't make sense that he would now. Lifting her proud chin, the raven-black mare called out for one of the sisters to see if they were still taking recruits.