My round hooves halted on the frozen ground. I lowered my dark muzzle towards the frosted leafs on the forest floor. My ebony, silky mane brushed my neck and tickled the point of my bay shoulder. My moss green eyes blinked a few times. I had to stop. I had to collect myself and figure out how I ended up here. Here? Was one allowed to call a place ‘here’ when one didn’t even know where ‘here’ was? Stop it Lucilla, you’re over thinking things! Focus!

Months of travel lay behind me. Months of searching. I had run from a rebellion. I had escaped the unholy death by the hooves of lesser horse species. But my family had not. Their blood, my blood, had soaked the moss in our beautiful forest. I missed them. But I had have time to heal. I had have time to turn my sorrow into determination, my grief into happy memories of my parents and him. To se his body thrown to the ground had been the worst, but it all lay behind me now. Yes, Lucilla, it’s time to look forwards now. Keep the goal in sight!

I had been driven by the memory of a roan mare I once met. She’d told me of her resent fate, a fate I would come to somewhat share, but the important thing was that she’d told me about her future; her plans for a faraway land. She was planning to wipe out the naked and winged vermin and she’d offered me to join her army. But I was too young then to see the point - to see the glory which would come with a noble task like that. If I had gone with her, then maybe our fates wouldn’t have become so alike, at least not in the way they had, but of course hindsight is 20/20.

I lifted my head from the ground and kept walking in the slumbering forest. My ivory horn pointed skywards, it’s savage hook, designed to tear enemies apart, was something I was proud of. Much like how I was proud of the magic that rested comfortable inside me, I could choose to have that magic curl around my vocal cords and then I could sing it into the world. But I was completely alone here, so no one would be affected. I sighed and looked around. It was twilight, even though it was not late, and on the western skies I could already detect a few faint stars. It was going to be a cold night, the white cloud around my muzzle confirmed that, and even if my bay dappled coat had grown thicker these last few weeks I felt a bit chilly. I figured it was because the lack of food in my belly and the wariness of my body. I was glad it wasn’t windy today. Come on now, Lucilla. If you’re going to fight bloody battles then you ought to toughen up a bit!

I stopped again. Where would I go? The last horse I’d asked had pointed me southwest, and that was a few weeks ago and since then I hadn’t met anybody. I had hoped it would be easy, but to take directions had proved much harder than I thought. I was a good tracker, but there were no tracks to follow. At first when I asked people for directions many of them had heard of the roan mare, Nyra, but none knew anything about the land, Isilme. The more south I got though, less people had heard about Nyra and more of them knew about Isilme. They all warned me. They said the land had gone to shit, that I ought not to go there. But I didn’t listen, most of those I met where naked or winged freaks anyhow. But now I was beginning to lose hope. Would I ever find what I was looking for?

When you had been thrown to the wolves, literally, you had to band together and hope your pack was larger than theirs. Alan wasn't weak, nor afraid, but after her initial outburst at Mauja she realized that she had no wish to die a pointless, stupid death just to die instead of losing. There was more shame in falling and deeming the cause lost than in floundering in the ashes for a while before rising stronger than before. And by the stars, they would rise again and wipe Helovia clean of the filth! She had been comfortable being your friendly neighborhood racist, but being ousted had made it a great deal more personal. So. The bitches would suffer, and and only when she was done torturing them would she dispatch them to the deepest level of hell, reserved for ignorant traitors and blood-filth like them. Pah! Surely the Edge would wither and die in their hornless shadows. Scowling, she marched along in d'Artagnan's wake - not close enough to alert him of her presence, but close enough should a pack of wolves decide to overwhelm their involuntary two-horse pack. He was her friend, the one she'd followed from home, the one she had supported by rallying troops for Nyra - now that their brethren was scattered like ashes to the wind, she found herself clinging to him like a shipwrecked sailor clinging to a piece of wood to stay afloat.

When he stopped, she stopped. When he moved, she moved. It was a cat's game of stalking, and the mere play kept her occupied enough to not get bored. When the doctor wanted to, he could be stealthy, and she had no desire to stumble over his red butt and somehow try to explain what she was doing out here in his company. But then he began to stalk someone, so the stalked became the stalker, and the first stalker became some sort of indirect stalker of the new stalked. She wondered if object of stalkation was even proper language, but it would make more sense than 'new stalked'. Then, she grimaced. She was Alan. She didn't give a flying fuck about language. If she wanted to say object of stalkation, she damn well said object of stalkation.

Her friend demanded the object of stalkation's identity, and not seeing the point in lurking any longer, Alan swept past his dark form. Behind her, her tail was held above the ground, the dark tassel nearly sweeping the frosty grass. In the darkness she looked wild, her thick mane a feral tangle around her head. "Hello babe," she offered flippantly to the pretty mare. She was slim, but her muscles didn't seem useless. Some sort of bay or dark chestnut, hard to tell in the monochrome light, with a horn spiraling from her forehead. Its hook seemed quite deadly, and Alan grinned, approving. She was a pretty thing. Alan liked pretty things. "Don't mind the Doctor, he's a bit, ah, stoic. I wonder if he even knows how to have fun..." With a wink she cut off to the right after crossing Lucilla's path, padding down her side like a content cat. Her body looked much the same from this side, too. That was to say... not bad at all.

It could have been for the fact that it was late and I was tired or because of my gloomy mood, but anyhow I neglected paying proper attention to my surroundings and thusly the voice of a stallion startled me severely. “Is’ôre !” I exclaimed as my heart skipped a beat in my chest. Of course my mind scolded me right away: You’re a lady Lucilla, ladies don’t use words like that! It felt like I had jumped high up in the air, but my body had only twitched and I had also snapped my head in the stallion’s direction. He looked like dried blood in the moonlight, but I guessed he was a bloody bay under the rays of the sun. His glass horns were intimidating, especially the broken one, but I always trusted unicorns until they gave me a reason not to.

And so I smiled towards him even if his face was a bit gruff and his words demanded me to tell him who I was. Had I known his origin I may have been able to detect the faint smell that would remind me of my home, or rather a neighboring country of Anroir, but since I didn’t know to look for it I didn’t notice it. Besides when you reside outside your home for quite a while your smell is bound to change, the smell of my home however was still stuck on my body like a tattoo since I hadn’t stayed long enough in one place to have its scent replace the one of Anroir.

Just as I was about the answer the stud another dark form dethatched itself from the shadows of the forest. I really felt like I was out of my game, such a skilled tracker and forest dweller as I ought to be able to hear these sneaky stalkers before they gave me a fright. However I wasn’t as startled by the female as I had been by the male, but she still surprised me. Her voice reminded me of a feline, actually her whole demeanor reminded me of a cat and I couldn’t say I didn’t want to pet her, she seemed nice in her own interesting way and I offered also her a smile. But I shivered a little as she moved around me, looking a bit like she wanted to eat me.

I suffocated a short laugh at her words about the stallion. The sound got stuck in my throat, but I was sure he’d caught it and my eyes darted to him quickly as I flashed an apologetic smile. Then I finally found my words. ”I am Annia Aurelia Galeria Lucilla of Amarath Region, Anroir. I am the daughter of the Duke and Duchess of the Amarath High Clan and I seek the land of Isilme.” My moss green eyes traveled from the stallion to the mare, I was a bit nervous, wondering if they would believe me. So I kept talking so that they wouldn’t notice my nervousness. ”The reason I seek Isilme is that I want to join a mare by the name of Nyra. She’s supposed to be leading a group of unicorns called the Sect. Have you heard of her?”

It was a strange feeling standing so close to those two. It was almost as I finally was among friends again, but it could be just because of how my heart longed for friendship.

[Ooc; It’s up to you how much d’Art and Alan knows about Anroir, but they wouldn’t recognize Lucilla’s name unless they are really into Anrorian history =3 (She is named after an old Empress)]