I AM IRON AND I FORGE MYSELF

Erebos had offered her a patrol with him, and Wessex had accepted… though she wasn’t quite sure whether she was supposed to approach him and ask him to accompany her, or vice versa. The first is less than ideal, she doesn’t want the General to think she can’t handle a simply border patrol by herself. The second is better, but every time they meet, he says nothing, and she wonders if he has forgotten. The only conclusion the eight-horned mare can firmly come to is that indecision is ridiculous and she’s fucking better than this.

A home and approval should not make her complacent, should not weaken her drive to succeed in whatever environment and whichever task is placed before her. So what does the newest Soldier of the Basin do? She patrols. Because she does not know what else she should do.

Passing around the makeshift gate through which Tiamat led her, Wessex hears a faint Hello?, and even as she pauses to determine which way the sound came from (sounds are all sorts of echoey up here sometimes), there is yet more noise, which sounds vaguely like a commotion or confrontation. Her ears flicker back against white bone and mottled fur. Those sounds require investigation. A sound, a low whinny, follows and as it doesn’t sound aggressive, Wessex simply puts her neutral face on, no flashing lights or blazing guns needed. Luckily, she isn’t far from the Sentinels and as she crests a jagged bluff (smaller than a peak, but still rocky and less round than a grass-covered knoll) the two culprits come into view. But they don’t seem to be doing… anything.

From the depths of her broad chest comes a response, a hail and a halt hidden somewhere in the wordless sound. The horned woman picks her way fairly easily down the slant and finally comes to rest mid-way between the tri-horned woman and her eagle, and the Sentinels. Orange-yellow eyes examine the well-built filly and her companion boldly before saying anything. The kohl-rimmed lizard eyes are scrupulous, combing over talons and comparing sizes and when she finally does talk, she mentions nothing of the mechanical guards that loom over them. “Hello. Who are you?”

This herd doesn’t seem like the type to act as if every visitor is a potential threat, so Wessex refrains from aggression towards the ever so slightly larger filly. But as she is the first visitor the soldier has encountered, she’s still making up protocol and flying by the seat of obnoxiously thinning tail.

W E S S E X