“Take your brother with you.”

It was a statement Oswin was beginning to loathe.

She loved her brother but for her wild and carefree spirit, he was a nuisance. Calder complained frequently. Calder was scared of everything. If Oswin tried to have fun by giving him a little scare, he’d cry and then she’d look like the bad guy. Calder didn’t like getting out of their mother’s eyesight.

The older he grew and the less it seemed he was going to shake his nervous behavior the more frustrated Oswin became with him.

Sometimes she suspected their mother pushed Calder on her because she knew Oswin wouldn’t misbehave when he was there. Calder was a tattletale and no amount of quiet threats would keep him from confessing everything to Dock.

Oswin rolled her eyes and huffed in frustration, hooves crunching against the icy ground, head slung low as she nibbled here and there at what small sprouts of grass might still be poking through. A stop was made to dig up some soggy, dead grazing and then it was onward again, nearly fully-grown in tail flicking at her hind-end. Calder trailed to her left and always jogged a step or two when she started moving as though he feared she’d suddenly take off and leave him in the dust.

Voices.

Oswin’s head snapped up, ears pressed forward. She was as vigilant as any herd stallion and as bravely foolish as a young colt, too. She would not send a warning cry for father at the approach of strangers and race back to the herd to alert them, too. Oswin believed she was capable of defending the Prairie if need be.

Oswin started to walk forward, wondering what she couldn’t see just over the swell of a hill.

Calder looked nervous but one look at his sister leaving him and another at the lonely path back to the herd solidified his decision. He hated being alone.

“Oswin, wait!” He cried out pitifully, picking up his slender legs to trot after her. Almost a yearling but by behavior, one might think him a newborn foal.

Oswin snorted, ears flicking back, and gave him a grumpy look that held him back a step or two, and then looked forward again. There, she saw company. Lots of company. Mares. Lots of mares. Oh, wait… Ears pressed forward, blue eyes searching hard, she spied the bodies of two foals against one of the mares.

Well, you didn’t see this every day.

A low nicker rumbled past her pale lips as she crested the hill and wandered down, moving in toward the gathering of strangers. “Hello,” she greeted them, wondering quietly over each of their faces (some looked downright familiar – as though they shared something she should understand). “I’m Oswin, daughter of Valentine and Dock.” Seemed an appropriate greeting in case it was her father they were after.

Calder had come to a halt just a few feet back from Oswin’s rump and he eyed the group warily. “That’s Calder, my brother.” She sounded less enthused.

“What’s brought you all to the Prairie in the dead of winter?”