In years to come, the titanic colt will come here with innocence blighted, with lust in his blood and hunger in his heart. This is the place where lovers curl up beneath the embrace of the trees, where foals burst into life in waiting wombs and where the journey into parenthood begins in earnest. Volterra knows none of this now, however. For him, at just a season old, it is simply another place for him to explore, another place to file away in his encyclopedic memory for future reference.

Given that he is now a couple of months old, the beastling has been doing his level best to try and eat grass, just like Mother. Here in the grove, the grass is particularly thick and juicy, and even Volterra finds himself enjoying it. His heavy hooves shuffle across the ground, powerful neck arched downwards with his tail thrashing to rid himself of the flies that persecute his flanks. He feels incredibly mature doing this, because this is how Mother looks and Mother is an adult. So, then, must be Volterra. Why, he is practically a stallion! So intent is he on his grazing that he doesn't notice he is walking straight towards a tree with downward-branches instead of outwards-branches, and a hiss of surprise leaves him as the twigs tickle his back. Ears pin and he lashes out with a shrill bellow, feathered back hoof crunching into the offending branch with a crack. It flicks backwards then launches forwards again, slapping him sharply on the rump with a resolute thwack. A snort of digust pours from his nostrils as he storms away from the stupid tree, out of the other side.

It's there that he sees a duo of pegasus (what the hell is the plural of pegasus, he wonders? Pegasi? Pegasuses? Both sound dumb to the beastling, so he settles on simply pegasus) - a mare and her foal, or at least he assumes it is her foal. A filly, by the looks of things. A very excited filly, who seems thoroughly delighted at the sight of a tree. Volterra now thinks himself quite the adult, and shrivels his nose snobbishy at the sight of such childlike wonderment. Not like he'd ever been obsessed by something dumb, of course. "You never seen a tree before?" he asks the winged filly, stopping a short distance away. He looks up at her dam, wondering if she is the sort of mare who will kick away a strange foal, or whether she'll allow them to interact.