And Gecersiz belongs to me. The words paraded through his mind through their entire journey back to the Peak, inescapable in their determination to leave him confused and uneasy. She had been so afraid of him that it had given him a mild case of whiplash to suddenly find himself claimed. He hadn't even begun to unpack that it was the Peak that had claimed him, or the fact that winter would soon be upon them and he would quickly have to learn to live among the barren mountains.

And Gecersiz belongs to me.

His golden-brown gaze flicked toward the loudly painted mare as they moved in silence, a million questions hovering on his lips. Ashteroth, she'd named herself. A powerful name, and a fitting one, for a mare that carried herself with no small amount of authority. Why she'd ever believed he'd be able to claim her and steal her autonomy was beyond him, but he supposed such burdens were his to carry as a member of the male sex.

Which left the question of why she had claimed him in the first place. Gecersiz wouldn't call himself very knowledgable about the politics of the islands, but you'd have to be deaf and blind to miss the feud between the Peak and the Lagoon as a resident of the Crossing. And even he knew that mares went to the Peak, and stallions to the Lagoon.

So why were they now in the Peak?

"It's pretty here," he offered awkwardly as they drew to a halt, his gaze skimming over the peaks and valleys. And it was, although he doubted it would ever call to him the way Salem did. Even his winter coat - when it did grow in - always looked funny on him. Long in some places, shorter in others. He looked as though his angular body had never quite figured out how to keep him entirely warm, despite the fact that he had lived the majority of his life on the Crossing.

"I don't-" he cut himself off and frowned, glancing at her, then away, and then back again. He drew in a breath to steady himself and was able to lift his chin lightly, although the nervous backward-tilt of his ears belied his anxiety. "I am not sure what purpose you brought me here for, but I can be of some use, I think."

Granted, he would have to relearn all the particulars of the Peak's flora to reveal it's secrets but perhaps that was just a matter of study. "My mother was a healer," and so was he, although he'd always found that leading with the fact that a mare taught him softened those that would reject his help otherwise, "and I learned a great deal from her. I'm not much of a fighter," he winces, although the soft legginess of his body had already likely given that away, "but perhaps I can help treat your injuries after your own battles?"