If the captives of the Lagoon were going to be released, the Lagoon needed new captives to refill its ranks.
The water chilled and darkened considerably the closer to Tinuvel he swam. His narrow legs cut through the water, developing muscles pushing with force to glide his body through the waves. Ahead, where his white-faced skull just bobbed above the break in the water, he could see something large and white knocking about in the waves. Fog settled over the surface, obscuring his vision of the island ahead. His ears flicked forward and, as he swam closer, he snorted - and realized it was the largest chunk of ice he’d ever seen, floating atop the ocean surface.
He was close, then, to land. He only hadn’t been able to see it because of how thickly the fog had rolled in, and he hadn’t even realized.
His hooves struck the graveled sand of the shoreline quite suddenly. He stumbled up the next few steps, white-splattered, cream-gray body emerging awkwardly from the water. The cold was on him in an instant and, despite his somewhat grown in coat, the lagoon thief shivered. He blew a hot breath from his pale nostrils - it was semi-translucent and it swirled and joined the fog laid out before him. His ears flicked this way and that, neck pulled up into his shoulders as he peered as far as he could see.
Up the shoreline the fog seemed to thin, which led him to believe the further he walked into the trees the better the chance was it would disappear altogether. He turned himself in that direction and began to walk, happy to keep his body moving, generating his own heat. The trees, too, offered their own sort of comfort. An embrace; a disguise. Peyote felt more at home when he was traveling around the trunks of trees; he was never as comfortable in an open field.
He had traveled a half hour or hour at the most, stopping here and there to test the scents of horses and learn what he could as he went. Eventually there was a breathing sound that made him go still, and he turned his white-face toward the direction, black-tipped ears forward, blue eyes watchful. It was a calm breathing; a steady one.
The stallion turned toward it, lowered his head, and charged into the brush. His intent was to cause alarm, of course, and possibly bring a flight response from whatever horse he was going to charge after. If he could have them running in fear, he could use that fright to bully them where he needed them to go.
If they fought, well, it’d been awhile since he’d had a good tussle.
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