Across the river, on the edge of the forest in the near distance, a large unkindness gathers. Their blue-black bodies stark against the dull gray of the winter sky, they fly in a broken sort of unity. The sun filters weakly through the snow-burdened clouds, now and again giving their feathers an iridescent shine. They wheel northward and settle raucously into the outstretched branches of a tree whose life has been drained of vitality; it will not be resurrected come spring, when the earth is warm and new life is everywhere. The birds squabble with one another for a minute or so, flapping wings and squawking, pushing one another until the best branches have been claimed and the snow below is littered with hastily pulled feathers and several droppings.

He bursts out of the forest at a dead run, entering the Meadow just below the conspiracy-laden tree, a crow of laughter peeled from his sweat-stained muzzle. It would have been impossible for them to hear him coming - for any to hear him coming - because just seconds ago he was soundless, twisting and turning amongst the irregularly placed trunks. The dead tree explodes with startled ravens and they fill the sky like some ominous harbinger of what’s to come, but he pays the cursing birds little mind, continuing his sweat-streaked charge toward the River. The water, though lazy here where the banks widen, is still a mass of open water, littered with rock and wood. Glorying in the burn in lung and muscle alike, the sweat that warms his piebald skin, he uses these natural forms to traverse the surface and gain the Meadow-side bank.

Set’s hooves find slick purchase in the snow on the other side, his steps confident and sure. Slowing his pace only just, he bunches his hindquarters beneath him and wheels off to his right, running several strides before jerking to his left with another wild shout of glee. His striped hooves churn up the ground beneath the snow, his unruly gambol destroying the pristine spotlessness of the otherwise empty common-land. Well, nearly empty. He does not miss a beat, frolicking in the now-dirty snow, steam rolling off of him, a lawless, coltish grin on mismatched lips. A rather sizeable clump of snow levitates in his wake, hurtling itself toward the impossibly beautiful mare who trails along his periphery.