It's not every day you fail a test so miserably, but the shaking figure on the Nerinian cliffside had a much bigger problem, she realized soon after.
Everything was bigger than it should be. That said, she was smaller than she should be, and... a whole lot darker.
She hadn't believed it to be possible, but here she was, weak, small, and back to black like she used to be. Her head was dizzy, she didn't know how long she'd been there, but her wet body was cold and it was dark outside, so it was pretty obvious that she'd failed the test to become a true Nerinian.
She didn't go to meet them afterwards. Pah, she didn't even know how to get there. She started walking along the rocky coastline, her wings unable to carry her at this point. She wasn't what she used to be a few hours before, wasn't what she should be right now. But she knew she was due home any time soon, and so the little foal, unsurely-footed at first, but more surely when she remembered how to navigate the rocks, made her way to the southern border of Nerine's coast, then unto Hyaline. She knew that in her homeland, somewhere, she should be able to find a way up, back into the mountains, but it was suddenly a long trek for one so small such as she.
It hadn't been too long before her second birthday, but now she was starting all over.
has always been within