OOC: Set at the end of Autumn

Autumn was quickly fading from the isles, stripping the Crossing trees of their leaves and setting the grass alight with frost each morning. Raegar had run himself nearly ragged this season, between multiple trips to the Crossing, battles, and his more amorous adventures. He was by no means as thin as he had been when he'd returned to the Badlands after so many months away, but he was certainly thinner than he'd been the last time he'd come to the Bay. Lean, wiry muscle rippled as he jogged ashore, his gaze no longer wandering but hunting, purposefully, through the foliage.

Raegar rarely came to the Bay in search of a particular mare. He often just showed up here to needle at Fell, pick a random mare, and then proceed to fight, but something had been different on his last trip. He'd had a hard time shaking the bald-faced mare from his mind, and while they had been interrupted before he could convince her to run away with him, he had imagined doing that exact thing ever since.

Plus, he had made her a promise.

It wasn't long before the scent of the dark mare reached his nostrils and he dropped his head to the ground to follow it like a bloodhound on a trail, his eyes fixated on the trees ahead as he trailed further inland. She was somewhere in here, waiting for him. And while she might not know that they were destined to be together, Raegar already felt it in his bones with the same dogged surety that he had known that Mena and Aramis had been his. The same way he knew that Hawa and Skade belonged with him. The way he understood that Teasel and Senu were meant to stay with him as well. He didn't even know her name, but he knew at an atomic level that she belonged in the Badlands with sand beneath her hooves and an endless blue sky above her head.

As the scent grew stronger, so did his excitement, and by the time he finally reached her, he was all but jogging along. A low nicker of greeting rumbled up from his chest and he drew to a stop with his neck arched and a playful grin already expanding across his charcoal lips. "Told you I'd come find you again, didn't I?"

young stallion - mutt - seal bay overo - 15.1h - rafe x velahrn