Peyote had seen the red stallion Nahawi, Boss of the Lagoon, make his way to the direction of Luthien before. Curiosity hadn’t risen initially, but as tension heightened in the Lagoon, Peyote soon found his blue eyes lazily trailing the paths the man took. Each time he seemed to return from Luthien, he had come back alone. After a little while of thinking it over, the thief decided there was something on Luthien that the Lagoon boss wanted, but he had thus far been unsuccessful it taking back.

Peyote did not necessarily consider himself a better thief than the stallion voted in as the head of the circus, but he thought it might be nice if he showed effort. Maybe he could give a few extra bruises to whatever herd stallion kept thwarting their boss. Best case, of course, would be that he brought back whatever it was Nahawi kept failing to get. Surely that would ease the woes that’d thus far plagued the Lagoon as of late. Psychedelic had taught him throughout the entirety of his life that when there was trouble between the brothers, one only had to supply a few pretty trinkets to distract them and make them happy again.

So, Peyote set off for Luthien. He caught stale traces of the boss's scent here or there on the island; a bit of red hair snagged off a branch deep in the forest gave him a decent clue of which territory he’d been to. Peyote set off through the trees, enjoying the enclosed feeling the deeper into the forest he drew, but disliking the brush of pine across his hide, given the explosion of scents that came when he did. By the time he came upon whoever he was trailing (nevermind that he hadn’t worked that part out yet) he was going to smell like one of the damn pine trees himself.

He slowed his steps as his ears caught what might’ve been the sound of another large creature. Drawing to a halt, the gray-brown grullo flicked his ears this way and that, surveying the noises of the forest around him. The meandering steps of an unrushed horse some distance to his left was what he’d thought he heard, and excitement was a shiver down his spine as he grunted and lurched forward, chin tucking to his chest and neck proudly arching.

Peyote trotted into the clearing, able to see the mare now that she was more or less in front of him, just a few yards off. Normally he would lower his head, pin his ears, and then charge without so much of a warning… but lately that tactic hadn’t been working for him so well. Peyote stopped himself a distance away and snorted at her, then struck the ground in front of him. A twig cracked beneath the contact. His ears swung back, then forward.

He was waiting to see if there were others near - if he’d suddenly hear their hoofbeats, or she’d cry out and they’d bellow in return - to gather exactly how much of a shot he had at pulling this off. The tension, though, was growing.