Sabal had not thought she’d return to the mountain after she was unsuccessful in the quest that had drawn her here once before. But this time her motivation for coming to this place was her own.  Nothing called her here but the determination that had lit like a flame in her chest after the realization had fallen upon her that there was something that she could do about her inability to stand up to those with greater magics. So, before she made her way to Tephra, she had begun her climb to the summit to ask the faeries for help. 

The was water magic in the blood of the nereids. And while she had inherited many of the characteristics of the bloodline – her scales, some of her appearance, and her immortality – she had not inherited any of the traits that allowed her to bend water to her will.

But with the dangers that her loved ones now faced – her friends and chosen family in grave danger – she knew that she needed something more to protect them. She knew that teeth alone would not help her in this fight. So she hoped that perhaps the faeries would have a solution for her, because she was willing to make whatever sacrifice was necessary to find a way to access the magic of her mother’s line. For so long she had been plagued by feelings of uselessness. But today she would do something to try to even the odds.

The journey is difficult for the mare who spends so much of her time in the water, and by the time she reaches the summit she can feel the fatigue seeping into her bones.  She was already exhausted given the fact that in the last few hours she’d been forced to abandon her closest friend in her hour of need, cast out of her home, and forced to abandon her son. But she holds her head high and offers a quiet prayer to the faeries, “Please. Please help me keep them safe.”