Osmanthus has lost count of how many years he has taken refuge in the Peak. It has been a place of solace, of solitude, a place where he can distance himself from the rest of the world and the relentless pain it insists on inflicting. The vulcan mares have been surprisingly tolerant of his presence, a fact he tries not to take for granted.

Yet he has always known that he the coccoon he has built for himself here will not remain entirely impenetrable. Whether he is sliced from his chrysalis or whether he breaks free, it matters not - one day he will be forced to confront the world he has been running from. He cannot hide from the specters of his past forever. Anso, Amaryllis, Daracha, Honeycutt… he is too keenly aware of the gaping hole they have left in his life, the unfillable void that threatens to consume him daily, leaving little behind but an empty shell. But he has resigned himself to this reality, one where he is and always will be alone.

Yet something unexpected happens one early morning as he is loitering about the peak, the crisp wind caressing his coat and combing through the tangled locks of his mane. The air is thin here, and smells of snow and ice, an ever-present olfactory reminder of winter's impending arrival. Osmanthus grazes idly on the sparse greenery, lipping absent-mindedly at the autumn-dried underbrush. The wind shifts, and then…

With a movement so abrupt he feels as if his spine might snap, Osmanthus raises his head, and there… she is standing so close, yet so far, her tawny coat glowing under the buttery rays of sun that stretch from the cloudless horizon. Osmanthus can scarcely believe his eyes, so much so that he blinks several times in rapid succession, if only to prove to himself that what he is seeing is real. That she is real. Still she stands there, her eyes fixed to his face, her lips curled in a faint smile.

"Amaryllis…" Her name falls from his lips as a meek whisper. Osmanthus feels like a boulder has just come down the mountain and hit him straight in the chest, the breath punched from his lungs. He takes a tentative step forward, and then another and another, until he is nearly nose-to-nose with her. The daughter he thought he had lost so long ago. The daughter that has now, miraculously, returned to him.

Osmanthus reaches out to gently brush his nose against hers, nostrils flaring as he breathes in her familiar scent, his throat constricting beneath the weight of his emotions and his eyes stinging with unshed tears that glisten like crystals under the bright morning sun. For the first time in a long time, he is lost for words.