Jetta
Jetta awoke that morning to find the land crystalized with frost. With her winter coat freshly-shed, the unexpected cold snap was unpleasant, to say the least. Her legs were stiff, and her body felt numb and clumsy as she stood to shake off the shroud of sleep. Her tired blue eyes swept across the ground to locate the still-slumbering form of Macabre nearby, and a faint smile tugged at her lips. How peaceful and perfect her best friend looked; how Jetta would have liked to curl up beside her for warmth and slip back into a content doze. She would not disturb her, however. She moved on.
Her shivers began to melt away as movement warmed her muscles. As the mare broke free of the sheltering thicket that she and Macabre had stayed in overnight, she found the hills before her bathed in sunlight, and was pleased to see that - out here in the open - the frost was already giving way to the morning, clinging only to the shadowy dips in the ground. Soon it would be gone altogether. Jetta stopped to appreciate its beauty for a moment, and reflected on what its reappearance so late into spring could mean. Obviously nature had its own mind, and would never truly conform to the abstract construct of 'seasons' that living things used to comprehend it, but even still, something about it struck her as significant. As though it were a sign.
As she located and drank from a small, cold stream, the mare recalled the vision she'd had of her mother some weeks before. Inka's ghost had visited her on one otherwise ordinary overcast afternoon to instil a sense of existential fear in her: "Don't make my mistake. Don't let this mountain claim you. You have so much more to give," the hallucination had told her before disappearing into the mist, and it had been so real, so vivid, that afterwards Jetta had cried until her eyes were all but swollen shut. In the days following she had puzzled over its meaning and come to the conclusion that her mother - or her subconscious, whichever was responsible - wanted her to travel. The Peak would always be her home, but Jetta knew that near the end of her life Inka had regretted becoming a recluse. It had cost her relationship with her children, it had cost her any last chance of falling in love, and she had died alone, with no one around to make her passing more bearable.
Jetta had never intended on chaining herself to the Peak for the rest of her life, but she and Macabre had not managed to travel the islands together yet, and suddenly the thought of enduring another humdrum day in her childhood home was stifling. With the intention to return before sunset, the mare travelled to the beach and made the great swim to the crossing for a change in scenery.
Her short summer coat dried not long after she reached land, for it was warmer here, she was pleased to note. It was much more colorful, too, which she always seemed to forget and appreciated anew each time she visited. While the peak had its own ancient, awe-inspiring beauty, its forests were comprised mostly of dark, uniform evergreens, and what flowers the open slopes bore were short and stunted to endure the merciless winds. Here, plant life of every shape and shade abounded. Birds, bees, and butterflies flitted wherever she looked. While it was as devoid of equine life as the Peak was these days, Jetta did not mind. Its beauty was enough for her; just surrounding herself with such a pleasant environment was enough to lift her mood.
After a short stroll to cool down her aching muscles, Jetta picked a spot out in the open beside a mossy log to graze. For now, her heart was content.
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