Things have been so different in her world lately.

She has grown. She is no longer the foal that she was frozen as. She is a young mare now, a woman coming into her own… She has lost her family (as far as she knows - she isn’t aware there are many relatives yet abound) but has found a new one in the form of a rag-tag group of brother-figures. Perhaps she is only compensating and filling a role stolen from her life when she was a mere infant, and although it does help here feel a little more secure and capable of dealing with waking up into a world so many decades after her birth, she still feels out-of-place, a little dizzy like she doesn’t quiet sync up with this place.

That very oddity is why she wanders so often, especially now that she is no longer as defenseless as before. She is nearly mature (although still small in stature) and now that she feels capable of fending for herself there seems little to fear from venturing out...not even into the colder regions of Beqanna that are dusted with snow. The cold reminds her of her youth, when night fell upon the Deserts’ dunes and everything glittered with dew the next morning before the sun fully rose.

The shadowy wings on her back hug tighter against her barrel (as if such barely-corporeal things could provide any kind of warmth, but she has developed a habit of treating them as physical) with every gust that greets her as she journeys to the Meadow. Her winter coat is not quite full enough to combat the lower winter weather outside of her jungle home but it doesn’t seem to faze her. Rather than shiver, she seems almost to relish the chills set against her face, pausing occasionally as if to enjoy the frosty winds.

Still, once she arrives in the Meadow she lingers near the treeline where the snow isn’t quite so high on her slightly-soggy legs, wet from crossing the channel from Ischia back to the mainland. In a quiet manner, she observes the goings-on of the world around her, intent with the appearance of being somewhat blase. However that becomes slightly more difficult when she catches sight of something brilliant and blue from the corner of her eye.

Pond is already known to be drawn to unique horses and her childish curiosity has not left her yet. Ignoring the chill on her fetlocks, she abandons the safety of the treeline and picks her way through the snowy meadow toward the intriguingly vibrant stallion, although as she draws closer she begins to discern a subtle change of the color in his coat, somewhat more violet and gentle, a perfect accent to his vivid indigo body. Her pace hesitates for a moment in girlish admiration before she comes within speaking distance of him.

“Hello,” she says quietly, still mentally blushing and trying to compose herself again. That’s when she realizes she hasn’t thought any of this through; why had it been so easy to talk to Vulgaris when they’d first met? At that fleeting thought, she relies on the same icebreaker (but it feels a little sillier this time): “I...I really like the color of your coat.”

She wishes she could turn as translucent as her murky wings now. Alas.