With the days growing longer and warmer, and little bursts of green beginning to dapple the naked boughs of the trees, Asha could feel just as many changes taking ahold of the herd. They were becoming restive and tempermental, and not just because her dam had been trying to carve herself a place of respect amongst them. Many of them, Nymeria included, were full to bursting, and on more than one occasion Asha had seen strange undulating movement beneath the taut skin of the mares' bellies, or heard deep grunts and bellows coming from hidden glades within the trees that brought strange and frightening images to Asha's mind. Her mother had little time for her or her twin sister now, occupied as she was with the functions of the herd and the small sable foal she had taken under her wing. Asha's body was changing too, growing taller and stronger and more ungainly, with grey hairs beginning to pepper her face, neck, and sides.

She was at a loss. She did not know where Aevin was; likely the girl was sleeping, as ever, or perhaps off exploring by herself, otherwise she would be playing with her. Few of the mares had any time to give her, her mother snapped at her any time she came too near, and the stallion... well, she did not dare come too near him. So she daydreamed. Her dark grey lips tugging greedily at the sweet new grass as she grazed at the edge of the herd, the tall filly tried to fill her head with thoughts of the cold place they had lived in before, but she had been too small at the time to form any lasting memories, it seemed. Even her sire's face was a blur in her mind's eye, a figment of a shadow of a dream. Yet when the leaves rustled ahead of her and a peach-colored horse stepped out from the depths of the forest, Asha experienced a moment of delusion in which she was back in the arch, and it was her father who stepped out before her, clear as day. She lifted her head, grass poking out from between her lips, and stared.

It was the tiny, pale filly that broke her reverie. Asha's eyes drifted between the two figures, making the connection. The apricot mare was the one she often considered to be the shyest of them all, the one whom she was surprised her mother had not yet chastised for being so unsociable. But there was something different about her today, Asha was sure of it, and she did not think it a coincidence that the filly happened to be there. Her mouthful of new grass forgotten, young Asha whickered softly and approached the duo with perked ears and an extended neck, her honest face open with curiosity.

Asha