The morning was bright and airy, the type of winter morning that was mildly pleasant in comparison to the blizzard that came before. The sun shone overhead, and despite the fact that it provided very little warmth, it was a pleasant sight to behold after several weeks of blanketing clouds. In the Thistle Meadow, a small filly tottered along behind her mother, her fragile limbs lifting comically high to avoid the thick clumps of snow still dotting the landscape. The girl had been born in the eye of a blizzard, in a moment of calm before the storm resumed, and she could not recall having ever seen the sun. On this particular day, she kept craning her neck to try and gaze in wonder at the orb in the sky. Her mother warned her not to stare at it for too long, lest she have a desire to lose her vision; the filly ducked her head sheepishly, but could not help but glance upward every now and then, entranced by both the sight of the sun and its affect on her retinas.

The girl's name was Aleta, and she was a very special filly. She was not like the other foals that roamed the Hidden Falls. For one, she was the youngest; for another, she was the smallest. She was fragile, more so than most newborns. Her mother told her to be patient, that she would grow to be a strong young mare one day, but one day seemed so very far away just now. Already the girl had begun to develop a certain shyness, a slight anxiety that others would judge her for her weakness. The interactions that she would have in the coming days and weeks would determine just how much of a hold that anxiety would have on her, but for now, it was naught but a niggling doubt in the back of her mind.

Aleta had begged her mother to take her beyond the borders of the Hidden Falls. The girl was only happy in certain locations within their herd's lands. The crashing of the waterfalls that permeated the air was overwhelming to the filly, who had been born in the shadow of one such cascade with a hypersensitivity to touch and, apparently, sound. The falls grated constantly on the nerves of the girl, and after she had proven to her mother that she could withstand the short trip to the Thistle Meadow, Sohalia had been more than happy to escort her on her very first adventure.

The filly stepped into a particularly deep drift of snow, and the sudden shock of cold against her chest pulled a pained gasp from her lungs. It was not simply that the touch chilled her, but that she felt every individual flake of snow as a pinprick against her hide. It was literally painful for her to endure, but she pressed on anyway, holding in a soft groan as she pushed through the drift and made her way to her mother. She began to follow the ivory mare exactly, using the path that Sohalia made through the snow to avoid further damage to her fragile nerves.

"Talk."