They’d fallen in love eventually. The thing about the eventually was in the fact it was very eventually—they’d been friends for all their lives and loved out of that context for a very short time. Earthshine was… how old was she now? Seven? Where had the time gone? Things would only change more quickly from here if they changed at all. Ivan had disappeared again, and she would always get used to that. Best friends for a long time, lovers for a short time… which one was more important in the end? To Earthshine, the former. They stood on equal ground with each other, and that meant more than anything ever could.

The mare’s movements hold a different sort of grace. She’s unconventional with her beauty and her strange movements. Then again, this is a mare that’s never been subject to formalities. Tradition was lost on her aside from the verbal, aside from the stories that would be told. Her grandfather’s stories… they were the ones the mare was enchanted with. She couldn’t help but adore them… family history wasn’t lost on her. Hell, irony wasn’t lost on this mare. There were a million things that she could and couldn’t hold onto.

As she wanders, the mare’s ears flicker forward intently. That scent… the cold brings the scents to false freshness. Still, she asks the stallion tentatively-- ”A woman called Briar… she’s old now… does she still live here?” It’s gentle, a hope rising in the creature’s chest. Earthshine had come face to face with Briar on a few different occasions… she was Ivan’s mother after all. The woman had been more present than her own mother.

The mare leads the rest of the way in silence, tracking the way her hooves fall on the Inlet grasses beneath her hooves. This place looks so much the same as it used to. The creature’s eyes are gentle, finding the place along the shoreline. There’s a bluff, a dramatic cliff off into the water, and the creature tracks until she finds the cavern. It’s shallow, enough room for a few. A low ramp of stone leads to the overhang, the ground of the hollow only shoulder height to a horse from the ground. Earthshine leads the way up, the hollow enough to shelter a handful of equine beings from any oncoming storm. This was her place.