The boat ride was not a relaxing experience for the shadow mare. For all that the rooms were pretty and the atmosphere welcoming, she just didn't have the peace of mind to stop and admire the architecture of the ship, nor the lush insides. All her focus was on the horses that came and went through the bowels of the wooden structure, horses big and small, young and old in every pattern, shade and color imaginable. But despite her searching, despite her looking and hoping and pleading she caught no sight of her son, saw no flash of silver coat, back-swept horn nor silken wings, and by the time the storm abated and they were allowed to embark, Shadow's nerves were at their breaking point.

She hurried off the ship as soon as she could and stared at each and every horse that queued past into a fresh, vibrantly green world that was the same yet fundamentally different from before, blind the the splendor around her as she waited for him, and for them, the ones who had offered to help her search.

Upon spotting them the pegasus bared down on them, not angry so much as she was tense and worried but with such intensity about her that the taught expression and ruffled feathers could easily be mistaken as such.

"You!" she snapped at the leopard-spotted mare that had first offered aid, "Well? Did you see him, have you found him? Was he on the ship?"

Even as she asked Shadow looked around for Ampere, amulets of both sun and moon and earth clattering in her newly cleaned, groomed and braided mane for every swift turn. She needed to catch the blue-eyed troublemaker, had to drag every last detail about Kari from her if she wouldn't offer them voluntarily. They might be old friends and Shadow might be indebted to Ampere for saving her in the past, but all of that was void if it turned out that the firebrand was responsible for her sons... for Kari's...

No more responsible than myself though, who let him out of my sight in the first place, a small voice whispered in the back of her mind. Shadow shook her head as she kept snapping her attention between her targets.

Hope was a painful thing, guilt just as bad. But perhaps the most dreadful of feelings was that of love, the aching, burning curse that just wouldn't leave her alone no matter how much she told herself that she was foolish for still feeling.


@[Rei], @[Kvothe], @[Ampere], @[Bolverik]