[open] lost in the woods; any

[Lepis]

again you’re gone, off on a different path than mine i'm left behind wondering if i should follow A chill wind streams across the red kingdom, slipping through the lowlands and skirting the high mountains. Lepis, standing on a sandstone cliff, watches the greenery beneath her shift and bend in the strong wind. This is not her first winter in Loess, but it is her first in many years. The dun mare takes a deep breath, inhaling the familiar flavor of sandstone and salt. She has missed that. She has missed everything about Loess. The faces that she sees are mostly new, but the land itself has remained unchanged. This is the place she had spent a happy childhood, the place where she’d been the happiest. Once, she had thought that happiness was not a matter of where she laid her head, but she has learned better. She has not slept often since coming back home this summer, but when she has it has been soundly. Lepis sleeps alone, with no foal to mind her hooves around or mate to shake the nest with his snoring. Everything is exactly as she likes it, and rather than feeling empty as she had often fears, she instead feels satisfied. So she smiles as she looks down at the familiar red hills, and though the expression is faint it is undeniably fond. There are a few horses down on the valley floor, too far away to identify. Some are probably her kin, Castile’s children and siblings, but many are residents that have come in her time away. It’s been a long time away, after all. A sound behind her causes the long-haired pegasus to turn, and her blue-grey eyes seek out the source LEPIS i’m the one who sees you home-- but now i’m lost in the woods and i don’t know what path you are on

@[any loess resident]