Someone had forgotten to tell Atlantis that it was winter. The sun shone brightly amongst the bright explosion of green hues the jungle was, making them glitter with drops of freshly fallen rain. Tarrant had awoken to the song of rainfall that morning when the sky was thick with gray clouds. He’d listened to it tap the thick leaf canopy the jungle made and listened to how it had subdued the other creatures that would otherwise be out, scavenging for food. While listening to its soft, calming sound (at least now it was calm, for no thunder was booming in the distance), he found himself smiling. Smiling, and then aching.

Away from those few that had stayed in Paradise after Tarrant had recently taken it, Tarrant was stripped from his quiet, somber expression. The truth of his woes could only plague him in his loneliness and the longer he stayed in the tropics of Atlantis, the more he was caught between forgetting her or remembering her more. Life would be easy again if he would bury her as he had buried every other painful memory in his past. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t do that to her. Anyone but her, as horribly unfair as that was.

But remembering her made him remember others. Tarrant remembered all the pain in his life rather than the happiness, and it stole his jovial nature right from beneath his hooves. No longer did he give a careless, boisterous laugh as he crashed through the jungle and looked for adventures. No longer did he take to the salty surf for Crossing Isle with the explicit hope to make friends. Tarrant just… lived. Kindly enough, cordial with both his neighbor at the Ridge and with those that remained here, but quiet. Maybe it was good that none of them knew him. Maybe it was a good thing that they couldn’t realize just how horrible of a difference this was. To them he just seemed… old.

He wasn’t, well… he was already twelve, soon to go on thirteen.

The rain had long stopped and Tarrant heard the distinct sound of hooves against the soft, jungle ground as leaves brushed a body of sorts. He snorted and lifted his head, blinking and coming awake in a sense, clearing his mind to focus on the present over the past. The faint horse-like shape could barely be made out through the patchy shadows where the sun’s rays were disrupted by tree coverage, but Tarrant still whinnied out to them, letting them know he was here. He turned his body around so he’d be more approachable, lifting his head and walking forward to meet them in their path.

A mare. Tarrant did not act as other stallions might when they drank the scent of a mare fresh from the sea. He did not crowd her by pushing into her space or drive her further into his home. The white speckled, palomino roan only blinked and flicked both ears toward her. “Hello.” A simple start, really. “Welcome to Paradise.” Sometimes it sounded mediocre to say. Tarrant might have been used to living on Atlantis, but he’d always lived at the shore. “I’m Tarrant, the lead.”