Khar'pern
She did not dare go back. She could not face them. Not in the way she felt, not in the sullen and depressed state she found herself. Too often she found herself staring over the edges of the rocky outcroppings, watching as the white mists swirled and moved far below. How easy it would have been to reach for their beckoning grasp. How easily she found her hooves shuffling so close to the edge that a single hard wind might have sent her tumbling forward. They deserved better than her. They deserved better than her failures. Why had she ever thought she could lift them from the mire of desolation they found themselves in? Why did she believe she could do what others more skilled than herself failed to accomplish? The depression continued to weigh upon her mind, more so after she discovered Diccon’s body, broken and ravaged by the illusive mountain cats that patrolled the mountain heights. What else could she do?And so she had left the lands that had felt more like home than anyplace else on this earth. Weeks and months went by, a year? Maybe more. She lost count in her wandering search for answers but alas, regardless of how far from the island she traveled, still her mind returned to those distant snow-capped peaks and the mares that called them home. Had they searched for her? Surely Marceline was grateful for her departure, the spotted mare had been vying for Khar’s position long before the depression began to sink in so deeply. But what of Ashteroth? What of Clarity and Nashira and all the other mares that had supported her? Was it selfish to merely leave without a word?Those thoughts alone bring her back to the islands, and force her to forget the self-pity that had taken its toll on her mind and body. The closer she came to the islands, the more the peaks stood out above the horizon. No longer were they mere blue specs on the horizon of the mainland but now, now as her hooves finally touched the malleable sands beneath the azure ocean, now that her sterling gaze casts towards them, they are the same green-blue hue that has kept her from ending it all. Misting haze hangs above the lower slopes, playing peek-a-boo with the evergreen trees forest that encircles their slopes. Paper-thin nostrils flare as the rose-hued woman takes a deep breath, sifting through the salt air to catch the faint whisps of pungent cedar and pine. It was unlike anything she had ever discovered on the mainland. There was something about these islands, about the Peaks that sang the song of her soul. They were her curse, her chains. They were the source of her greatest love and biggest fear.Yet even now, even so close to them, to the ones she called her sisters… her family, Khar’pern cannot find the strength to step forward. Instead she wades ashore, away from the reach of the foaming waves that lapped gently at the shoreline. Dripping and exhausted, the once fierce mare allows her limbs to fail, curling beneath her soaked body as quietly she settles onto the sun-warmed sands. Even in exhaustion and the lulling voice of the ocean, she cannot help but to stare up at the distant mountains and again ponder if this was really her calling or simply a fool’s desperate quest.
rose gray Prime Minister of the Peak