Finally, after wandering through hell and back across Helovia and meeting some odd characters, I’ve rediscovered the direction north and found myself… well, shit, okay so I don’t really know where I am still but I have a pretty good idea that I am somewhere near the Basin. I felt some comfort in that, though I would much prefer to find the mountains and get somewhere safe. As the night stretches I begin to realize it wasn’t bloody likely that I would and I look around. There’s an odd little light glowing near the surface a little ways away. Caution and reason tell me to keep away, but it’s moving a little bit and I find myself moving as well - figuring I had about a 50/50 chance of surviving this encounter.

Much to my own embarrassment, I gasped when I realized the source of the light. Not a ladylike, she-probably-wouldn’t-notice gasp, but a loud and shocked one that seemed to echo across the quiet Steppe. Get it together, Elspeth! It was just a horse! Or what looked very much like one. I wasn’t altogether convinced that the creatures I was walking around with here in Helovia were horses in the strict definition of the word. They seemed far too bizarre, as though at some point their genes had gotten mixed up with all manner of things in the world.

I wondered if sometimes I looked as strange to them, with nothing but cream and red-brown on my coat, as they did to me. And it was that chastising thought that stopped me from turning and running as fast as I could away from this creature. She had to be a goddess, some sort of physical embodiment of the stars and the sky. Had I fallen asleep? Or perhaps I was freezing to death in the Basin and this entire excursion was a hallucination while Calder and the rest chuckled and told me everything would be fine. If I was safely in a dream or a coma, then perhaps I did have the courage to go over and say something.

I approach slowly, far too cautious for any moth-to-a-flame comparison but I had to admit the light of her coat and the colours, especially with the twisting aurora above them, were utterly fascinating.

“Are you the Goddess?” Four of the most idiotic words I’ve probably ever said but it seemed appropriate, did it not? I’ve approached from the side and keep a few lengths between us just in case she is a god and decides to smite me for my insolence.