As the buckskin mare wraps her pale daughter up into the equivalent of an equine hug, noise and movement catch her attention. She had smelled traces of this unknown stranger as she had moved through the forest looking for the herd, but she had not thought too much of it. She assumed Lyden or Braylen would have already dealt with whoever the visitor or intruder was and that she did not need to seek him out to eject him or try and skirt around him. She did note as well that she had smelled the scent before faintly in her visit to the lagoon – if he was one of the bachelor, it may not bode well.

The mare turns her lifts her head away from her daughter, ears already pinning into her ebony mane, and looks upon the stranger a brief moment before he is upon. She might have reacted quicker if not for her surprise at the sight of his disfigured face and missing eye. She throws her head up and is about to send a bite out at him when Lyden’s pale form crashes between them. She snort, pawing the ground anxiously as Jökulrós peeks out from behind her. Noting the presence of both foals, she nickers, pushing them further from the fray. She did not want either of them to become casualties if the young stallion somehow slipped past Lyden. With irritation, she noted the similarity between this moment and the moment she had fled for the crossing.