Of all things, the soft-stepping stargazer had not expected the violence that greeted her first visit to the World’s Edge. She had followed her academic and rational Czarina here hoping to see more of Helovia from the safety of the Giantess’s proximity and more, to learn what she could about the unknown herd’s ways. She had thought to learn about diplomacy at what she had to quickly assumed was the master’s knee, but what Asavvi came upon was little more than the very brutality she had hoped to avoid when she had not returned to the place of her birth.

The dark-crested girl had not followed to closely to the sultana and so came upon the confrontation already in the throws: the Mountain that Knows fighting a mammoth of a stallion that she quickly learned was called Tembovu and a collection of horses gathering to bicker as they watched the duel. It sickened her. Both that two that clashed and the many that seemed to watch so nonchalantly made her stomach want to twist and turn in her abdomen. Why. the question tripped in her consciousness for it was a question that would never be satisfactorily answered. 

Her eyes, the color on an overcast sky, were stricken as she was caught for a moment in staring at the child of the Earth God, the rest of her face not quite succeeding in staying blank and betraying her distress. It was foolish to feel betrayed by this. Even as the inkling rose she shrunk away from it. betrayal was such an ugly feeling, a violent one, and for her own sake Asavvi tried to tell herself it had no place in her mind. Isopia had never professed to abhor violence but her cold, academic manner had been something Asavvi had recognized, aspired to, never dreaming for a moment that it hid a violent beast within. 

Because she needing something, maybe needed someone (a cowardly girl she had ever been seeking shelter wherever it could be found) she gravitated toward the one other face she knew here, one who was mercifully not betraying a penchant for combat. She had avoided Zèklè when he had come to the Falls, fearing that he would betray her presence to the denizens of the Throat, but in the face of this horror didn’t much care about that. She drew near to him, never touching, not even sending a true greeting his way, but wanting stiffly, unable to tear her stricken eyes away from the violence.

The words all the other spoke trickled over her, all the back and forth about reasons and morals. One thing assay picked up quickly was that though most disparaged the whys and the hows and the who's in this fight, not now seemed to make much of an objection to the actual violence that the two gargantuans meted out upon each other. It was wrong. Twisted. Perverse. Perhaps They had opened her eyes to that, but still she could not say They were wrong. 

This. Over a bag? Even over herds and principles, there was no excuse for this, This could never be right."There's no acceptable reason for violence. There never is." the whisper on her lips was directed at none. She thought of the hare, and thought of the bobcat, and knew she was wrong despite the belief she professed, the belief she clung to.

Does the secret fade—

            or is it everlasting?

Asavvi