Bacardi slowly pried open his eyes, the gold dull from worry and lack of sleep. Though the space beside him was empty, he glanced over as if he could feel her warmth, disappointment pulling at his features when he looked at the blanket of snow and pillar of trees where she should have been. The painted young stallion still could not believe what had transpired between them, but even now, the days flowing into the next season, it made his heart hammer with excitement and a heat fill his body unlike he had ever felt before. A smile tugged at his ebony lips despite trying to fight it and he somehow found the strength to give a stretch before walking out of the cover of vegetation towards the shore.


As the painted boy stopped there, his eyes drifting over the churning sea waters, he tried to decide which Island to go to first. There was a chance he could find a place with his Father, but Bacardi did not want to ride the coattails of his sire. If he was grown enough to make a life, then he needed to stand on his own, not cower away in the Peak as he had been doing. That was no place to raise a family, at least not from him. It best suited Wasp and Clarity, and Bacardi would always find comfort in their presence and the presence of the Vulcans. But that was not his life, that was only his childhood, and it was time to grow up.


Lunging out into the waters, Bacardi made for the island that Havelle had once taken him too. Tinuvel looked like an ancient god, wrapped in the swath of fog and clouds that no doubt dumped its frigid snow and slicing winds on its residence. But it was the closest to his home, and where Havelle had grown up as well, perhaps it would be best suited to that of their child?


As his hooves finally struck the rocky shore, he clambered up out of the sea’s grasp. The water streamed down his wooly winter coat, plastered to his two-toned hide to show his youthful but strong frame. At nearly three years, he was not to full height yet, but his body showed the makings of a well-built stallion once he matured. Delicate ashen nares flare, drinking in the frigid air that cooled the heat that Havelle’s memory left in him, and tasted that of the lead stallion upon the wind. It was not a cologne he had ever caught before and knew it could not be Rougaru or Liland.


This was it, this was the moment.


Taking a deep breath, Bacardi let out a long beckoning call for the King of these lands, in high hopes that the stallion would be in a good mood despite the looming storm he could see building upon the peaks further inland.

two years. mutt. bay tobiano. fourteen three hands. of the peak.

"...speech"