Time dulls the teeth of whatever monster grabbed your heart upon first glimpsing the World's Edge. Maybe you don't love the smell of fog or the way the air hangs like a shroud over the trees (over you) but you begin to wonder. The dull hatred of change and the ache you feel when you remember the Basin is swallowed slowly by curiosity — curiosity piqued every time you notice something new about this place, from the way the surf roars far below the cliffs to the way the fog hides even simple shapes in its embrace. The World's Edge is a place full of secrets, full of hiding, and so you're surprised when something as simple and familiar as a meeting is called.

Your father thinks you won't want to come, but he's wrong. Vesper speaks your thoughts before you can, her much brighter shape bouncing up against Mesec's side as the three of you approach those who have already gathered. "Me too!" you grumble, ever slower and quieter than your sister. Your own dark hooves carry you after Mesec's tail, and Vesper keeps talking, the constant accompaniment of her voice a joyful music until it peters out, and your ears prick instead to the king, the great and indomitable shape of Tembovu, who is clearly the biggest unicorn ever to exist in the history of the world.

He says someone's gone missing.

Or — well, that black and white mare said it, first. You don't know anyone named Mauja, though. You're not sure you'd even recognize him if you did see him. You're thinking that when Vesper speaks up anyway, and your father, and for the second time in the last few minutes you're the odd one out. Your ears twitch toward your family; silently you decide you'll help them help, easily led creature that you are. Your eyes are still up, though, falling from Tembovu and from Alysanne to land on the strangely patterned girl nearby them both, the girl with fire dancing on her back —

and you know her.

Excitement bolts through your chest and your ears come up immediately. What's she doing here? Wasn't she in the Basin last? Has she moved, too? Suddenly, more than anything, you want to cross the meeting and ask, but fear of causing a scene roots you to the spot, to the space near your much darker family instead, and your body is still as only your thoughts race. And maybe you'd spend the rest of the meeting staring like an idiot, but suddenly someone else is talking, yelling, at your father.

Immediately, your dished face swings around and you fix the pale girl (horn and wings) with the confused mirrors of your large, dark eyes. Vesper's already talking, of course. "Why're you here?" you grind out alongside your sister's alarm. The white girl is small enough, young-looking enough, that you don't fear talking back to her the way you might fear saying the same thing to Tembovu, or the spotted lady at his side, or any other adult. No; wings mantling like a dog's hackles, you advance a step, your ears tilting back. Go away, everything about your body says. Or at least, shut up.

VIRGA