"Kovu!"

Vitani calls after her brother, following his half-grown silhouette as it winds nimbly between the trees. His body, slim with adolescence, fit between spaces she could not, and with the dark of night still lengthening the shadows, his deep chestnut coat blends into them with ease. She tries to keep up with him - and she manages, for the most part, catlike and graceful and bolstered by her superior knowledge of the Crossing's pockmarked terrain. She can tail him, alright, but for all the shortcuts she takes she still cannot catch him.

At least, not yet. The sound of waves are growing louder, and the forest is thinning, and if Kovu wants to keep evading the press of her blunt teeth on his neck, he'd better put more distance between them, because the instant Vitani breaks from the tree line, she will run, full-tilt, until she brings him back to heel. Nearly two, her little brother isn't little anymore: with every passing day, he comes closer and closer to surpassing her in brute physical strength. But no matter how strong he gets, he will never be able to match the featherlight swiftness of her whitesplashed, dancing legs.

If only I coulduse them, she laments silently to herself, wincing as yet another errant bramble steals a few threads of her shining copper tail.

"Kovu, get back here," she hisses, eyes narrowing in the predawn gloom. "Mom's gonna wake up soon, and if you're not there, she'll -"

"I don't care!" the colt cuts in, his words drawing her up short. It was like a cold wind had gone through her: her ears flew back, pressing flat against her poll, and she shivered, too stunned to tell if it had been out of fear or fury. The concept, even the notion, of disobeying their goldspun dam was something Vitani had never even considered. Sabor wasn't soft, but she cared fiercely for all three of her children. She had her plans for all of them, and she would see them to fruition because she loved them more than anything else in the world.

Kovu, especially, should have known that. He was the golden child, the firstborn - firstborn son, Vitani remembered bitterly - and for him, Sabor would melt like ice in the midday sun. For him, she would swim to the mainland and back; for him, she would climb to the cloud-rimmed summit of the Peak, and down, over and over until her lungs gave out. For him, she would move the Earth. He knew that. How could he throw it all away so easily? How could he just sneak off like that in the middle of the night, not a word to anyone, and leave Vitani behind to pick up all the pieces?

"Wow," Vitani finally says, her tone dripping with sarcasm, and is gearing up to scold him when she realizes that she's spoken only to empty air. Kovu had taken the few seconds between his outburst and hers to flee, slipping into the shadows and out of sight. Vitani swears, tossing her head in anger, and chases after the fading sound of his hoofbeats, crashing haphazardly through the undergrowth. When she finally clears the forest, it's not without a fine layer of dirt and debris, along with more than a few small cuts. Her amber eyes sweep the coastline, casting about for her younger brother - and there she finds him, a hundred yards north, his lanky frame stepping over the threshold from sand to frozen sea.

Vitani gallops straight for him, easily closing the open space between them. But her quickness on land does not translate well to water, and by the time she's reached its edge, panting and wide-eyed and bristling at the feel of the ocean brushing over her fetlocks, he's already in up past his chest. She hates winter, and she hates the cold, and she hates swimming in the ocean for how it tosses her about - and yet she fears her mother's ire even more. Vitani screams, both to warn Kovu of his impending doom and to loose some of the searing rage burning her frantically-beating heart, and plunges deep into the icy black waves, pushing forward before she can think to change her mind.

Within moments, she knows she's made a mistake. The water shocks her with its frigidity, and the sea in winter is stronger than she's used to. She tries to swim towards her brother, but no matter how hard she kicks, the distance between them only widens. "Kovu!" Vitani calls, barely managing to see him above the churning surf. Panic seizes her; she fights against the tide, her breath coming in sharp, short bursts. Saltwater goes up her nose. The red mare coughs, gasping for air. The muscles in her legs lock up, rendering her powerless against the rip current dragging her further and further north. "Kovu!" she yells once more, crying out for help, with naught but white-crested swells and the light of the rising sun to answer her.

-

Vitani struggled like that for some time, stubbornly attempting to move her frozen body against the current, before fatigue forced her to stop. Nothing she tried brought her any closer to solid ground - and so she simply stopped trying, using the last dregs of her energy to keep her head above water and hoping that the ocean would spit her out eventually, if only she could just hold on.

It took hours, but it did. Eventually the tide seemed to change, and the direction she was going seemed to be bringing her towards the coast rather than away, and when she could feel the current spit her out she swam like Hell towards it, the air sharp like daggers cutting into her tired lungs. Vitani washes ashore at last, parts of her young body aching that she didn't even know she had. For a few long moments she simply stands, knees locked. She lifts one pink hoof, intending to take a step forward - and crumples like a newborn foal, landing hard on the grey-pebbled shore below. Frustrated, exhausted, pushed far beyond her limits and far beyond the boundaries of her sanity, Vitani tucks her head to her chest, pinning her ears against the waves as they sweep around her, back and forth, endless. She'd had enough of this, of all of this, and it was all Kovu's fault.

"Spoiled little brat," she mutters, sighing heavily. Only after another minute or so does she notice movement to her right, and tips her ear towards it, peering at the figure sidelong through her soaking-wet forelock. She can't quite make out who it is, exactly, but she knows it's vaguely horse-shaped, and masculine, after snorting out the last bits of saltwater clogging her rosy-pink nose. Masculine - but not Kovu.

Damn it.

"W-what," Vitani says, "do you w-want," her once-sonorous voice made flat by fatigue, and shudders against the cold, barely paying the stranger any notice.

"C-cant you s-s-see I’m busy?" Busy dying of exposure and whitehot rage, maybe. But she didn’t need to tell them that. Anyone with eyes could figure that out.