There is a place in the forest where tree and shadow cede to the unknown, and maybe that seems like nothing so very special in a place like Beqanna, a place where myth and monsters have been known for centuries. Maybe that is why it seems so forgotten, so ignored – so much the better. There is no one to see when she steps into the weak godfingers of light that reach down between the empty canopy above, curling around the sharp cut of her jaw, cutting themselves on the points of long canines. The light bleeds down her chin, dappling her golden chest as she weaves out of shadow and darkness. Her path suggests she’s come from an impossible place - there is no way to know, not really.

The place that was once her home is fractured and broken, full of winter’s deadly hush. Nothing around her seems to stir, but she pauses, listening anyway. Cold silence presses down upon her back with its leaden weight, filling her ears with a noiseless roar, plucking at her heart and her belly with its whispers of death, of despair, of withering. All the lively green things are black under its touch, are waiting only for the warmth of spring to rot and fall away. And yet, and yet…

Not even winter can stop the squirrels. The sungold mare turns her head to the noisome rattling of a squirrel among the frost-blasted weeds, tail bent forward across its back against the biting air. Her own pale tail flicks lazily against her haunches as the little beast digs through leaf litter and loam for its hidden stores. Her breath rolls from her nostrils in great white clouds. It makes her think of dragons. It makes her bristle, makes her sneer, as she turns her attention up the path to something larger than the rooting squirrels. For a moment, she considers evading it, you can see it in the shift of her haunches, the twitch of her ear, but then-- no.

Why should she be the one who yields?