The Peak was what the Peak was, and it had been foolish of her to hope for anything different. The valkyries she had imagined as a young girl were little more than myth and legend, their deeds long forgotten. Only fading echoes of that passion remained there now. Those lonely Peaks were far too busy hosting mares seeking revenge and vindication to stand for the righteousness the little dun craved.
What fun was peace when you could, instead, become the enemy? They turned the Peak into a prison for men, the same way the Lagoon had always been a prison for women and then kept needling, kept challenging. Roi didn't understand why such women bothered to be a part of women's refuge. If they were so hungry for drama and fighting, why did they not strike out on their own to start their own herds instead? They had lost sight of what the Peak was for, in her opinion, and she couldn't stay to watch it happen.
Nor could she return home, with Tyr still lording about the Ridge. She had tried to ignore him, but now that he had gone about gaining himself a crown in addition to stealing her childhood home, she felt less welcome than ever. There was nowhere left for her to go, and yet she could not convince herself to try the Commons. Each time she considered it, she went cold all over with dread, though she could not pinpoint why. Stallions were not all terrible, she knew, but most were. And even the good ones could stumble into darkness, as she'd seen with her brother, Sigurdr.
Disheartened and frustrated, Roi found herself lingering in the Falls, letting the steady roar mute her uneasy thoughts. She was headed there today when the sight of someone else ahead of her stalled her hooves. She didn't know the mare, but that was hardly surprising, given that Roi had long ago stopped trying to keep tabs on everyone in the Crossing. But she was pretty, a fact that struck the dun mare out of the blue. She rarely noticed when others were attractive, having long ago accepted that that part of her just didn't function like it did for others. She'd once believed herself in love with Iscariot, which had made his eventual abandonment hurt all the more.
The soft murmur of her voice forced Roi's ears forward to listen and she couldn't help a soft chuff of commiseration that made her face immediately flush when she realized she'd called attention to herself. Flicking the strands of her dark tail across her hocks, she made her way to the mare's side and peered down at the reflection. "Me too." The smile that she offered was small and nervous, and she allowed it to drop as she nosed at the fading ripples, stirring them up once more. "But I think everyone is a little broken, for what it's worth. No one makes it through life whole."
She raised her head slowly, peering toward the taller mare with mismatched eyes. "Do you want to talk about it? I'll share if you do?" She chuckled a little, her lips curling into a lop-sided grin. "Then we can pretend we don't know each other if we ever meet again, and no one will be the wiser."