Spring was here, and Mercedes was considering coming out from hiding. She had generally avoided the stallion of this territory, and had more or less kept away from the mares that wandered the place as well. They all just made her so nervous, but she couldn’t help but wonder if she was being rude. The stallion had, after all, shown her a hidden and sheltered place that he probably shouldn’t have shown a stranger, and shouldn’t she be either grateful for that or at least appreciate the trust in the gesture? Perhaps. And she was greedy to hear his voice again, however much she told herself otherwise. And she didn’t know his name.

Gah. She was suddenly drowning in reasons to go looking for the man, and frantically grabbed at her only reason not to: she had no idea what to say to him or how to find him first.

In the end, Mercy decided to wander freely for once. If she bumped into him, great. If not, even better. She wove through the now-familiar trees, though they were somewhat less familiar now that they were not entirely cloaked in snow. The temperature was steadily creeping upward, and though it would not get very far before it began to descend again, the few degrees that washed away the morning frost and fog were welcome.

The air was just barely warmer, but the sun was pleasantly toasty on her back when she passed beneath breaks in the canopy. There was still a thin layer of dirty, wet snow that packed in her hooves; she frequently had to stop and tap her feet against rocks or tree trunks to dislodge the icy stuff.

Mercedes eventually wandered back to the general area in which she had begun, trying not to feel disappointed. The sky was growing darker, the sun still not ready to stay out very late. The mare spotted one of her favorite spots in the territory; a smallish hill, defined by the huge, flat-topped boulder that capped the peak. It created a bit of a cliff on three of its sides, but ran smoothly down into the grass on the one remaining. Mercy climbed the steep hillside until she stood on the rock, easily able to watch the sun as it died and bled into the clouds.
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