Diamant

Diamant had come to find that the lagoon was a quiet place. Bar himself, the two other stallions he had met so far, and the boss Kasabian - whom he had not met yet but had seen from afar - there seemed to be no one else lurking among the trees and rocks. It was a far cry from the stallion-infested pit that he'd expected, and this came as something of a relief to him. It was not so different from the quiet sanctuary of the Peak, if he did not count the change in scenery and the stink of testosterone. It was almost beginning to feel like home.

Even still, there was a part of him that longed to return to the forested slopes of his birthplace. He missed his little brother; he missed the gentle company of mares; he even missed Inka. His initial anger over the lie she had told had long since burned out, and though he was still coming to terms with the fact that his parentage was not what he had been raised to believe, he could not deny all that the Friesian mare had done for him. Even if she was not his true mother, he owed her his life. The only reason he could not bring himself to reconcile with her was sheer stubbornness. He did not want to be the first the bend.

The day he saw the little yellow mare resting beside the local watering hole, Diamant thought he had won. He stared at her through the trees, wondering if she was an envoy from the Peak that had come to retrieve him, but then his amber eyes caught sight of the scrapes on her chest and the festering tear in her ear. She looked haggard, as though she'd been through hell and back to get here. Swallowing against the lump of anxiety in his throat, the young stallion forced himself out into the open, stopping at the opposite bank of the pool and regarding the mare with wary curiosity.

"What happened to you?" he finally asked, his voice soft.