[ ooc: This is for Arah and Illynx to meet, but is open for others to join in as well. <3 ]

The morning descent from the mountain was as beautiful as it was treacherous, the various slopes and peaks of the path completely coated in a blanket of white, crescent prints breaking its smooth surface from where others had traversed since the evenings snow fall. Her crown was held in line with her spine, her head swarming with various thoughts about life and its purposes and senses on alert for threats, and while she had no particular reason for leaving the Basin first thing in the morning other than desiring to be somewhere different, she found that she was peculiarly excited about this slight adventure. It may have been that she was putting herself directly into the line of danger, having been warned about the devils that lurked in the forests and shadows of the wilds, mirror folk come from goodness knew where, or simply that it was the first time since her return to homeland that she had left simply for the purpose of exploration.

It was almost like being young again, she muse, full of fire and brimstone for all that was yet to have been discovered outside of the comforts of a herd-land, but unlike when she was young, she knew full and well the severity of danger that existed in Helovia for unsuspecting individuals. These mimics were only a tip of the iceberg, the very belly of the land swollen with magic and incomprehensible power, kept in check by their deities who, one by one, had begun to fail them. As Illynx made her way past the Threshold and pondered the disasters that had already crashed down upon their heads, directly influenced by their so called "protectors," beings who were so powerful that they still fumbled like mortals when enraged. Their existence, being irrefutable, was something that the golden laced mare regarded with a respect similar to what she felt for her mortal superiors; the only difference between they and her companions on mundus was that the Gods were old as the dirt itself, and while she feared their strength, did not rely upon their advice or comfort. The Moon Goddess let our comforts be ripped from our teeth, mused the dark brown mare, eyes lingering on the deep forests of World's Edge as she slunk past them, clinging to cover and shadow so as not to be noticed by the other herd, and it was not her who led us home again. She had learned her lesson then, and, in retrospect, had perhaps shaped her very character around the loss of everything she had ever known to be true and wholesome.

She heard the ocean before she saw it, the rolling rhythm of the water interspersed with the sharp cries of gulls, followed shortly by the sweetly familiar scent of brine and sand. The beach would be warm, even if the rest of Helovia was cast into a winter sleep, but only just the shoreline - the snow was thinner along the grassy outskirts of the beach, and nonexistent but for a thin layer of frost upon the rims some fifteen or twenty feet from the water. But, with a sigh of pleasant happiness, Illynx arrived to the soft sand to find that the sun had kept it warm as could be expected, her frost hardened hooves soaking in what little it could spare as her eyes drowned themselves on the endless, sprawling aquamarine water.