Perhaps she had travelled too far, missed a landmark (had been too careless to remember) or just simply forgotten how the Threshold was dressed. As Africa’s gliding path curved into a large circle, her lofty gaze narrowed in dismay. Her intension, as pure and naive as it had been, was to relocate the place that she had begun here in Helovia only days ago, and start to explore her new world from there. She had been so confident, believing that if she travelled as directly north as she could, that the region would simply reveal itself once again- a task as effortless as it had been the first time.

Below, she watched a snaking river cut through a jagged mountain range. Extending her view further, the confused mare witnessed a growing mass of shimmery blue, swallow that same river where it tried suddenly to break out into the ocean. Africa shook her head, unsettled and bemused at the unfolding situation she seemed trapped by. Again she wheeled around, this time to the left, her grey feathered wings pressing powerfully against the shift in warm air. Levelling off over what seemed to be a saddle in the range, the mare was startled when a thick fog engulfed her; a cloud of sorts that she had not previously taken notice of, and the cold vapour licked at her warm coat hungrily.

Without delay (and driven by the flighted creature’s instinct perhaps), Africa lifted herself in a frenzy of flapping, dishevelled feathers, hunting for the opaque clouds apex. Wide, straining eyes struggled, but finally found the welcoming embrace of pale blue sky and curiously she noted that it hovered above a well concealed pasture. Both surprised and relieved, the young horse descended quickly, her neat round hooves cutting into the security of the lushly grassed loam. She stood quite still there, shifting her eyes nervously about. The space seemed so empty, unknown perhaps, except for the unmistakably harsh crashing of rock on rock echoing brashly off the outlying mountain walls surrounding. She turned and an apprehensive prickle of goose-bumps rose along her spine. The disconcerted horse turned again quickly, scouring the crags and crevices around her for the source of that reckless crashing.