Grass had begun to die in the shadows of the Basin. Chill winds moaned down from the mountain slopes, ripping at plant and animal alike. These signs all told her Frostfall would soon arrive, but rather than shy from the cold Valka welcomed it. Difficult to believe she would soon pass her fourth year in the world… how much she had yet to see! She felt a child still, her limbs yet dainty and her skeleton yet soft. With careful steps, the mare’s long legs wound past the steaming surface of the Basin’s hot springs and she peered out into the night. Steam curled around the colors of her tail, wandered the ground past the water’s surface, but Valka paid it no mind. The steaming water disturbed her still. She much preferred the vast, cold surface of the lake. It was familiar – one of the few things in this land she could say she understood. As for her own kind… she still felt more than a little odd around them, an outsider. Whether it was by her own ineptitude or thanks to a coldness radiating from their hearts, Valka couldn’t be sure.

She wandered the land alone for now, her strange eyes watching evening fall. Grace inhabited the long, smooth roll of every stride but a childlike curiosity gleamed in her eyes. Perhaps she would meet Snö again; she thought of the cold young mare as a friend, though she was aware Snö likely had more important things to do than keep watch on a lonely filly – and Valka had no wish to be that filly, the one vying for attention endlessly. She wished to command attention with her very presence, to be a flame and not a moth… but it seemed she had a long way to go. The best she could hope for was to continue scouring this land, memorizing the name of every new unicorn she met, filing them away under some arcane order in her head. She was searching now, watching the stars spring to life in a dull sky, watching shadows stretch long and hungry over the permafrost.

Her search was rewarded by a pale shape standing lonely just ahead of her. Valka’s eyes traced the odd, notched pair of horns on the mare’s head with muted interest. She had never seen a unicorn with horns so near the shape of her own – though her own was certainly more grandiose, more sinister. Valka held her head high as she approached, and the pale eye on her right side almost glowed against the dusk, against the dark skin of her face. ”Stargazing?” she greeted the other mare casually, certain she would not prove herself a fool today. The mare tilted her long face up toward the sky and blinked. ”I’ve heard tales of those who could read fortunes in the sky… though I sometimes doubt the verity of those claims.” Valka turned her gaze to the stranger’s face again, awaiting a reaction. ”I have not seen you here before,” she stated plainly. ”My name is Valka. Yours?”