With a snort and a clatter of bare hooves, Mo lurched the last few feet to the shore of the Pitou River and hauled both herself and an unamused Toulouse, who clung to the reins like a baby to a tit, up. The rocky bank was shallow here so that the heaving horse had no trouble reaching semi-level ground at the base of the Halcyon range. Her ears switched back and forth as she surveyed their surroundings, giving Touie time to slide from her blanketed back and release the reins. She trotted a few feet away, locating a patch of dry, tough grass and proceeding to lay waste to it as if her rider was of little consequence to her. Toulouse's eyes watched her bobbing white hindquarters for only a moment before they slid along the hardened ground and lifted to the south.
He hadn't been planning to go even more south, not once he'd left the trading port. He had intended to work his way steadily more north without turning back once until he returned home with his new horse, where he would show his parents his meager success before heading east. Instead, a seeming peninsula off the coast of what was once Canada had caught his attention inexplicably, for he had never been tugged toward a location quite like this. So here he was.
His tongue snaked over his cracked lips as he took a couple hesitant steps away from where the horse grazed. A hand lifted as if to hood his eyes so he could see, but mid-rise it seemed to change its mind and swat away an offending mosquito instead. It was clear by the way the white northerner held himself that he was uncertain what to make of the foothills, which appeared from there to be more wasteland than anything, nor what to make of his unrelenting need to explore it further.
Eventually, he decided not to mount back up, and instead began to walk uncertainly south through the rough straw and packed dirt of his newest rest stop.