Abraxas was awake when movement in the shadows of twilight caught his eye. Fatherhood, he'd found, had had that effect on him: sleep was a distant memory. If it was not his daughter crying out from a nightmare, or whispering to him incessantly, it was his own paranoia. His mother had dropped a foal, too—strange to think the boy was technically his younger brother—and as much he hated to admit it, Mercy was right. This was no place for mares, or foals. He simply did not trust his brothers to act honorably around his small family.

Was it some lingering loyalty his the Lagoon that pushed him to follow the strangers in the dark, then? Boredom, or curiosity? The delirium of sleep deprivation? Perhaps it was all of those together. Nonetheless, he was careful to stay hidden, keeping back at a safe distance and melting into the gloom of pre-dawn when he needed to. His hooves, gently squelching in the wet, boggy grass, became mercifully silent as they passed the border into the common lands. Slowly the grey light brightened around them until he could more clearly see the strangers up ahead, their restless forms hurrying past the broad expanse of rolling meadows.

They were heading, he realized, for the Peak. Mare and foal. Mother and daughter.

Something awoke in him. Abraxas stopped in the cover of the trees, and watched with eyes heavy with exhastion as their tails bobbed into another copse of woodland and out of sight. He thought of Mercy, and of his daughter; of his mother, and his new brother. He thought of their palpable misery, and how he was the cause of it. He thought of what they deserved.

"Go," he whispered, though the strangers were too far away to hear him.

He turned back to the Lagoon.