"I hear you," she murmured to the trees, smiling to herself as she danced lithely through their roots. They were eager today, tossing their crowns back and forth as if to beckon the storm on the horizon to come on faster. The wind, too, was happy, tugging at her pale mane and tossing it against her face, her neck, her eyes.

She laughed and spun away from her bark-coated friends, dashing toward the thinning treeline that marked the beginning of the surf. It had been years now since she had taken herself away from the Forest, and the urge to do so again, to search for that nameless something that had drawn her to Toland so long ago was stronger than ever. It curled in her belly, restless and eager, though it could not tell her what it was so eager for.

"I hear you," she said to herself, now, some of the joy slipping from her bright eyes as somber reflection stole in. She turned, dusky charcoal nostrils flared, and took a step more, letting the ocean tickle invitingly at her hooves.

She frowned, brow furrowing, and stared at the sand slowly forming to the shape of her hoof. Wrong, her belly whispered to her. Wrong! it tried again more fervently when she did not immediately obey.

Flicking the strands of her thick tail, Morrigan did as it (as she?) commanded, backing away from the ocean that she had played in only yesterday. The tension coiling in her belly eased, though it remained discomfited by the nameless something she'd been struggling with. "Alright then," she said appeasingly to no one other than herself, and pivoted back inland.

She spent the better part of the next twenty minutes angling back and forth as if driven by a poorly tuned compass until at last she found herself before a figure she did not immediately recognize. The first drops of the oncoming storm - large and heavy - left freckles on her otherwise powder-sugar coated rump, but the bulk of the storm remained an ominous presence on the horizon, promising more rain and soon.

"It must be you," she said brightly, neat ears twisting toward them as the agitation in her belly eased. "I've been looking for you all morning."