In the early hours of the morning, the buckskin mare had torn herself away from the herd to quench her thirst and paw out her frustration on the muddy ground. While discomfort was certainly obvious to anyone who looked at her, she deliberately hid the extent of it from their concerned eyes. In the secrecy of a small clearing by the stream, she could pace and scrape and throw her head around without attracting any worry from her peers. God forbid someone should witness her weakness. She would never live it down.

Vaguely satisfied with her morning ritual, she begins the miserable trudge back from her clearing towards the herd where she would once again paint on her mask irritation to cover the pain that radiated around her abdomen. Part way back however she catches the fresh scent of a mare that had lingered only faintly on the branches in the months prior; had Skylar finally returned? Or perhaps Quicksilver had finally arrived.

Adjusting her path to follow that of the scent, she soon happens upon a grulla paint mare. Her ears flick backwards cautiously and her stony gaze locks onto the woman. “Are you Skylar? Or Quicksilver? Or someone else?” she demands, her slight Nordic accent more pronounced as she asserts her authority. Though the scent was familiar, she had not met the mare before and did not know if she meant the rest of the herd harm or not.