Oh, the Weather Outside is Frightful | COMPLETE

As was predictable of Onea, a blanket of snow coated the entire landscape in glittering white. Flakes of the soft powder continually trickled from the sky, sometimes in flurries and others in mere occasional cascading flecks. With the rocky mountains so covered in snow, it was a wonder that any had inhabited the bitter cold region of Hireath, but it was understandable as to why they had. The landscape was breathtaking, to say the least. With rows upon rows of mountains, it seemed to stretch into eternity, and it certainly felt that way for any horse who had been travelling a long, long while.

It had been far too many years since the dark stallion had visited this land, and though his eye was graced with it’s familiar sights, none of the peace or serene wonder overtook him as it used to. Onea held naught hurt for him, only the memories of what he had lost years and years ago, memories which he had spent years repressing. But as he grew older and continued to learn, Q came to a solemn, but hard, conclusion: in order to find what he was looking for, he would have to go back. If he had any hope of picking up his mother’s trail, he had to start where it all happened. Even with this new found resolve, it had taken him nearly a year to reach this place, between missions and his fighting the instincts he had spent years building up.

When he left Onea as a foal, he’d vowed to find his mother, but with that vow came the unspoken resolve to never return to the site of the incident, so, when he decided to return, the difficulties kicked in. Most was a war waged inside him, two sides of himself tugging in different directions: the loner, pulling him to forget and repress, and the child, that desperately wanted to find what he had lost. For most of his life, the prior won the majority of the internal battles, and the latter was left to continue to be miserable. In this one instance, the latter won, and, well- Q wasn’t sure how exactly to act and react anymore. He knew in starting this journey that he would have to lay a part of himself down, and the process of learning would begin again. There would be pain. There would be fear, but ultimately- there would finally be peace, in the case that he succeeded.

Laying his ears back against his neck, Q trudged forwards into the gentle flurry as the winds tossed his mane behind him, ruffling his fur until the cold bit at his skin. With an almost amused sense of irony, he wondered if this journey would rather be the same: beautiful and light to see, but hard and cold to feel.

Only time could ultimately tell.

---

The stallion's ears had not remained back for long, as, ever alert, they moved to scan his surroundings for any source of stimulation. The whistle of the wind echoed deep within them, one horrid sound he did sincerely hope to escape from eventually, or perhaps he was simply searching for the utter worst in his situation.
Regardless of reasoning, this was not exactly a hospitable environment.  If a creature did not freeze, then they were caught by the wildlife, as was the circle of life.  Q planned to have neither of these things happen this day, though he would mind the freshening up of a good fight.

With every step through the snow the dark loner's mood dropped a notch, irritation quickly prickling his pelt.  Who could even stand this damn place?  An entire herd called this home? By Ignacio's flames. . . he cursed to himself, muttering under his breath about pointless journeys and scolding himself for even choosing to come back to this star-forsaken place.  There was nothing out here.  No predators.  No prey.  Hardly anything to eat, and there were certainly no other equines.  They shouldn't have been out anyways, not after the storm the night before.  Q had lived most of his life as a renegade, and he was skilled in housing himself, but that had provided a challenge even for him, and he had resorted to a half-baked igloo-like structure that he managed to construct using telekinesis.  He had survived at least.  Live to die another day, as they say.

Distracted by his own thoughts, Q nearly missed the grooves in the snow before him, an evident mark of another horse's movements through the area.  When his leg no longer hit the frozen ground, he paused, blinking to focus more clearly upon the sight before him.  The tracks looked small, not possibly from a very large specimen.  Rolling his eyes, the stallion huffed to himself.  Now he was about to be distracted yet again by someone insane enough to venture outside on a day like this.  Placing his feet in the gashes, he proceeded to follow the trail, careful to walk slowly and surly ahead.  Maybe if he walked slow enough, he wouldn't have to deal with another animal today.

Soon, he came upon a sign that read: "Danger: Falling Snow Banks." Another great sigh left him.  If it didn't fall on whoever it was he was following, it was at least bound to fall on him.  Brushing it off with a shrug, Q continued on.