Chapter 44
  The next couple days I tried hard to keep my spirits up.  The talk with Alastair really helped, but it didn't completely erase all the anger and frustration I felt toward Lune.  Eventually, I came to realize that I was not at all acting like myself, I was short-tempered and got aggravated easier.  Trying to love was very hard, but I decided not to just try.  I was going to love, no matter how much I was mad
which was quite a struggle.  I had good days and bad days, unfortunately, the day that I remember so well was one of the bad days.
  It was a cold day in January, the sun was out yet offered little to no warmth.  A slight breeze was blowing which made me shiver, and to make matters worse, I was extremely grumpy.  That day I had waken with a start, Abigail was romping with another young filly and had woken me out of my beauty sleep; I chased them both away with a vengeance, then returned to my spot and tried to sleep again, but the biting wind made it impossible to get comfortable; so I decided to eat my breakfast instead.  I lowered my head and trotted, sniffing the ground, for I wanted to find just the right place to eat my breakfast.  Nowadays, I was getting awfully picky about the grass I ate, it had to be the tips of the juiciest, tender grass, and that grass was getting harder to find, for the herd had been in the valley for a couple weeks and had eaten much of the grass available.  
  I would walk here, snipped up some of the best I could find; then seeing a clump that looked more tasty, I would proceed to that clump.  Fifteen minutes of that, I was thoroughly engaged in my grass eating; and actually feeling a little better.  My hindsight noticed a really nice clump of grass sitting twenty feet away, I turned around and headed toward it - only to feel a hurtling devil of a mare in my side!
  I was knocked to the ground with a scream of pain!  It was Pearl!  She was towering over me, "Stay away from my grass."  She glowered at me with red eyes.
  I mellowed immediately, rolling to my feet and lowering my head - yet still simmering with anger.  
  "Watch you place, Mitty."  She snorted and whipped around with an air.
  As she turned around, I lunged with a sudden and hateful vengeance!  "NEIGH!!!!"
  She turned around with a surprised look on her face, a rammed into her neck and sent her sprawling on the earth.
  Pearl rolled up and stood ready for a fight, "How dare you
.you - worthless mare!"  She screamed shrilly.
  I rose on my hind legs and pawed the air, she rose to meet me, and we kicked and scraped each others necks with a passionate rage!  She dropped down and I dropped after her, as I did so she reached her neck forward and sank her teeth into my shoulder!  I screamed in complete anger, because she made me bleed.
  Suddenly I decided I had had ENOUGH!  "PEARL!"  I shouted, "I'm done with you, and this stupid day!  I'm running away, I must, I WILL!"
  "Good,"  Pearl sneered, "I've had enough of you around here, freak."
  I walked up to her, my sides heaving.  Our heads were high, and ears flat against our skulls; nose to nose we stood, and quietly I muttered:  "But I will be back."  Then whipping around, I galloped the other direction into the towering trees, ignoring the astonished stares of the mares and Abigail's cry after me.  I knew what I must do, it was time, time for me to deliver.