a new world hangs outside the window
beautiful and strange
it must be I've fallen awake
I must be

She didn't know why she was still here.

Wasp hung around with Liland's few mares while the scuffle ensued. From their position in the thick forest, they could hear the grunts in between the clash of hooves against flesh. It was unsettling - to sit there and listen to it, but not be able to aid in the conquest. Wasp had felt terribly conflicted leading up to the eruption of the battle between the Fjord stallion and his neighbor. Liland had been nothing but kind to the Peak mare since she rolled in with the tide those weeks ago. As she recovered from the difficult swim, she'd gotten to know the stallion and his herd. They were certainly peaceful, and nothing but welcoming. But Liland knew how to pick his battles. He stood up to his neighbor when the call was issued, but was prepared to leave his home behind before he'd bend the knee to another he didn't believe in. Wasp respected that, no matter how sad the outcome was for him and his family.

The half-draft mare decided not to follow Liland and his mares to wherever they were off to next. Whatever journey Wasp was on was for herself, and no one else. But the dark mare would be lying if she said she wasn't lonely since the herd departed. The Bay was growing colder by the day, as summer edged into autumn, and while tough, Northern breeds ran through her bloodline, she wasn't sure she wanted to stick around on Tinuvel through winter.

But where to next?

The mare trudged through the light dusting of snow in the higher elevations of the tall pine trees, her wide and flat hooves bringing her down a somewhat familiar path toward the mouth of the bay, and its black-pebble beach. On the way, she caught the scent of a new arrival - another masculine scent. Wasp's jaws chewed on nothing but air as she weighed this new information. IT was only a matter of time before a new stallion moved in, she assumed. And maybe this was the push she needed to get out of her sooner rather than later.

W A S P