Was it not my mistake for seeing in someone what no one else desired to see? Or was it simply that I stretched the grooves of expectation until they were no longer discernable to the naked eye? Many times I had traversed the muddied trails of the Threshold, seeking talent and strength where others could not. It did not matter that the stallion before me might one day become a noted warrior or legendary philosopher… This was but a mere game of fabrication- a silken lie that could be conveniently pressed against one’s eyes until they could no longer decipher the fine line between what was ethical and corrupt. Again I was forced to oblige those I’d once believed to be moral and again I was forced to bear my own hands against the fire.

One could not miss the obvious resentment flowered and grown within Lakota’s violet stare. However, a fine wine could only be defined by its chalice, and the woman that stood before me now tasted more of poison and dust. Such a combination might sometimes be considered precarious or evenly deadly… But, I knew the men she served and I knew the life she lived (as old and quiet as it was), and there was something more substantial in the leaders I now worshipped. Did she find my presence to be so threatening that she would risk placing a dagger between the World’s Edge and the new Hidden Falls? After all, how many times had the very land she now claimed to call home been uprooted by stronger nations? Perhaps it was best that I had remained faithful to the Moon Goddess and her rule… she certainly didn’t mind playing dirty when the need arose. Could Kaj and Archibald say the same?

It seemed that I’d wasted too much of my life abiding by morals that subsisted only when the circumstances allowed. I’d been dubbed the Gentle Heart, but that certainly didn’t mean that I upheld such standards. Perhaps it was time to take a new route in life that did not adhere to the peaceful requirements supported by Kaj and Kahlua during their reign… Maybe it was time to adopt Lakota’s methods and forge my own name into the stone. Besides, what did she have to offer, other than a bloodied memory of a land always plagued in war and defeat?

My eyes turned slowly toward the golden stud with as much hesitancy as I could muster. I had to decide here and now whether or not I found him to be up to par to my own personal judgements. Lakota could bat her eyelashes and whisper sweet nothings into his ears all she liked, but that didn’t make her, or the Hidden Falls, the better choice. I knew what the stallion would be walking in to… and it wasn’t much. It was a group of liars, proposing peace and equality… and the World’s Edge had become much more dynamic since their departure. I just had to find a way to prove it. I’d come to recognize in him what I’d already reconciled in myself… and that was a strength that could not be hindered under the guise of peace and restoration. Why not bring to light the strength and valor of such a man? Why not make him larger than the life he now lived?

As my thoughts betrayed me, I chanced another glance at the pregnant mare with the lavender eyes (though I felt heavily sorrowful for the child she would come to nurture in future days). I’d done little to provoke the little roan and I could only imagine how a child would deal with such a bitter upbringing, let alone a full-grown man she could hold accountable for his actions. In that short moment, a bear second in time, I watched as she mocked me… watched as she attempted to fell my walls, and smiled because there were simply no walls left to crumble. As gracefully as one could, I winked at the hefty woman before returning my attention to the battle at hand. If Lakota wanted to treat the stallion like an object, then so be it. I had much more to offer.

“Fortune is such a fleeting thing if I must say so myself,” I stated while lifting my eyes. I had remained too quiet when allowing the younger stud a moment to speak and to introduce his cause. “Yet, I think that you have such an abundance of fortune, a plethora of opportunity if you will… Of course, it all comes down to politics and semantics when faced with the ability to decide, and I believe that you will be given quite the earful concerning the small issue of where you will live,” I added coarsely. “Be what it may, but I know that I come to offer much more than a fleeting mirage of what might be. The World’s Edge has come by some fortune as well… and I think you would benefit from its revival.”

I didn’t have to pretend such confidence because I knew that it was all based on what I’d witnessed in my short time back in the Edge. The mists themselves had secured such a fate and told me of grand future greatness. The Moon Goddess would return and redeem herself… and the World’s Edge would again flourish as it once did when Mirage herself inhabited the throne.

However, with so many thoughts cradling my mind in hope and grandeur I’d nearly missed the arrival of yet another female with an all too lovely horn seated between her sapphire eyes. If the Basin thought that they stood a chance back then, they surely didn’t stand a chance now…. Not with a former resident calling the World’s Edge his own. Whatever these women had to say was irrelevant; I was confident that the life I lived was admirable.