PERSEPHONE

It had been fate, Persephone had decided, that had led her to the Forest, although, of course, she did not believe in such a thing. The very first horse that she had met upon these Islands had been looking for this place, and then just a few days later she had stumbled upon it when she had decided to explore one of the nearby islands that she had overheard others talking about. Therefore, when she realised that she had found the forest in question, empty of life, and being swollen with self-confidence, it had made sense for her to declare it her own there and then.

For the past few days, she had enjoyed treating it as such.

Aside from the occasional swim out to the Crossing to look out for new arrivals and other such interesting potential encounters, she had spent the majority of her time since her arrival familiarising herself with this new place she called home, without anyone else to tell her otherwise. By now she had familiarised herself with the borders of the territory – the shore that melted into open plains, then eventually became more and more dense with trees, and the river that ran along one side of the Forest, the other side of which turned into open plains filled with long, unruly grasses.

This, she understood from the foreign scents and what little she had learnt of the islands so far, was a neighbouring territory, although she had been too preoccupied as of yet to venture into it and scope out whoever lived there. As she was about to discover, however, her neighbour had beat her to the punch.

A shrill call split the peaceful air, and sent the harmonic twittering of the birds in the trees into a frenzy of fluttering wings. Persephone’s head snapped up from where she had paused to graze at the edge of the Forest where the air was cooler on this warm summer’s day. Her dark-tipped ears flickered atop her head as she determined the direction of the sound, and headed at a brisk trot towards it.

Twigs snapped loudly beneath her hooves and branches raked her sides as she rushed through the narrow, overgrown trails towards the sound. After just a minute or two she reached one of the larger clearings within the depths of the Forest, and to her surprise found a stallion stood there. She slowed her pace but approached him purposefully, her ears angled backwards slightly as she eyed him carefully.

“Who are you?” she asked sharply, wary of this stranger and his intentions, barging so far into her new home as he had before announcing himself.

He had announced himself eventually, she supposed, and so she could only assume that he was not here to cause trouble, but she would not relax her cautious greeting until she had established exactly what this stranger wanted. She flicked her tail against her white-flecked side with a snap.

“What is your purpose here?”

all of your demons will wither away

mixed, bay varnish roan blanket, 14.3hh