Indira is a wanderer. Since her return to the islands, she has scarcely left the forest and it leaves her wandering feet feeling restless. She won't abandon the cause of the Forest, now that she is invested in it, but she needs to get out, feel a different soil beneath her hooves, admire a different sky above, and breathe some different air. A short trip to the common isle might satisfy her need, and have her home before dinner time.
Indira doesn't know what force drives her towards the falls. She follows the sound of rushing water through the trees, weaving through a landscape that looks too much like the forest she left behind. Other horses mill about, nibbling on new, spring shoots that sprout among the rotting leaf litter left behind by melted snows, but she pays them no mind on her journey to see the water.
This isn't the first time. Indira has seen the falls, but there is something nostalgic in admiring its beauty again. The mare steps towards the water, and watches the mist shimmer like a thousand fireflies in the mid-day sun. Indira too, stands a proud representation of every breed mixed within her veins. Desert born and bred, she is a sleek and shining as the water itself. Her face is refined and feminine, a stark contrast to the face of a kladruber. But where they differ in breeding, these two match in the wear of their aging bodies. Indira listens past the roar of the falls with one ear whole and the clearly bitten off. Her coat is littered with the marks of every adventure, not every scar from a fight, but some from falls, or long treks through lands thick with cacti or thorns. Her distant stare tells of a tale of love and loss, but that is how her story began, and not how it progresses. Indira has learned not to love too hard, nor linger too long in one place, for tragedy is sure to strike wherever it finds you standing still.
The painted mare hardly notices the dark stranger wading through the water, until the shadow of his form disappears into the falls. Indira's eyes look on with wonder. Without thinking, she steps from the dry bank into the water. The chill is a shocking a reminder of the winter's recent passing. She shudders, but continues to wade further into its depths. She peers cautiously through the curtain of water, but she doesn't edge any closer.