Like a white and mousey serpent, Asche slithered from the ocean onto the familiar shores of Tinuvel and let out a sigh of relief as his hooves found dry land in the form of the shingled shore beneath him. The bitter chill that hung on the edge of the air pulled at his pale skin, his dark eyes lazily flicking, searching numbly in the strong wind for some familiar sound that would bring back the idea of Tinuvel as 'home'. The salt and sea residue that clung to his body seemed to freeze almost instantaneously, and the cold that now coated his body brought back all too real memories of the days in which he used to haul his body down to the end of the beach, stand at the bottom of the cliff, and see whether his father's body was yet to have vanish into the deep blue. Memories from his life as a child - as the boy-king of the Cove - began to flood back, and salty tears stung at his eyes just as the same sour sort of water pulled any warmth from his ivory frame and his slate-tinged mane waved like a banner in the fierce wind.

The mass of land before him certainly was Tinuvel, but not his old home. The entire island, as he had approached it, seemed almost smaller than what his memory served. With a shake of his head, he put it down to the fact that the memory of his two year old self surely saw all things as huge, grand, his home built up to be the most marvellous of lands in the hyperbolic mind of an adolescent handed power and a crown far too soon. Had this early experience of aristocracy in this wintery paradise been what had given the ashen colt such a daddy complex? Living as an inadequate shadow to a father who's reputation preceded him even post mortem, and being a child to a harlot mother for whom he was never good enough was likely to take a toll on a boy with such a lively mind and a caring heart.

As he waded inland, the water around his hocks chilled him to the bone in a welcoming caress that brought up more ghosts of the past in his mind. He remembered lashing out in a benign display of ascendency towards his brother Kent, claiming the cove as his and his alone, his ego inflated by the will of his father that had been scribbled metaphorically along the shores of the home he had never called home until it was entirely under his control. Kent had grown up there all his life - Asche had been a stranger with nothing thrust into the land, the land he slowly fell in love with. Had he been right to remove his brother by force as his roan sister watched, unamused at the boyish squabble before her? Now, he was not sure. He decided not to dwell on such things even though his wandering mind seemed to miss the memo, taking Asche on a downwards mental spiral of self doubt and depreciation. Perhaps his father had seen something in him, in one so young, and that is why he was given land Array coveted so; perhaps it was a final stab of spite at his stupid mother who had opened her heart (and her legs) to a man who had fathered so many that he had lost track - the capped man was probably rolling with laughter in his briny grave as Asche had failed to fill the Cove of Tinuvel with life and ladies.

He would not fail again, he vowed. The Ridge, so different from his former life, represented a new man and a new chance at success.

This is why he had to find the cove now, to say goodbye, to move on and bury the past that haunted him just as the tide as it came in washed away the day before and left a blank canvas for the new one to begin.

With a guttural cry resonating in his throat, Asche called anybody who was near to him. Perhaps a stallion would find him here, rake his hooves against his pale pelt for invading his land unannounced, or perhaps a mare would run to him and press teeth against patched flesh and tear at him as if he were an intruder come to rape, steal and pillage.

Neither of those things appealed. He was simply here for a funeral, of sorts.