‘Go. Go to the islands. See if you can make a difference there,’ her mentor's parting words had echoed in her head for days. The painted mare had stood on the preface of a cliff on the mainland and glared at the islands in the distance. Apparently generations of horses had called that place their home. To Alpenglow it seemed like an isolating place and she had been given the daunting task of swimming over there. Of course she could swim but it wasn’t an activity she enjoyed doing and that seemed to be the only way of traveling between the archipelago.. Her brow furrowed in frustration. Why me? Why do I have to be the one to go? She thought resentfully. Surely if horses had already lived there for countless years they didn’t need a trained healer. All the other apprentices in her group had been assigned to locations on the mainland. Why had she been singled out to risk her life in the choppy waters? What was she going to find when she got there? A bunch of inbred freaks with buck teeth and bowed legs?
Alpenglow had procrastinated for as long as she could. Partly because she was waiting for fair weather but mostly because she simply didn’t want to go. She could be a very stubborn nag when she wanted to be but she wasn’t going to disobey her mentor’s last instruction. The swim had been long, cold, and there were a few points when she thought she wasn’t going to make it. But the mustang mare's legs had not failed her and she made landfall by late afternoon. Head held low, two tone mane stuck to the side of neck, she marched across the beach and onto solid dry land. It was a relief to feel the grass beneath her hooves once again. Blue eyes scout the nearby area and black rimmed ears are alert to the faintest sound. Did predators also call this far flung place home as well? |