For the first time since entering Helovia, I am afraid. I was not afraid when I arrived, alone, for I knew without a doubt that somehow or other, I would find my way. I was not afraid when Seele invited me to join her little band, for though they may be a few brain cells shorter than I, they suffer from similar (if less manageable) illnesses. I was not afraid when I fought the demon-monster in the sea, though I failed miserably at even that task. But now I am afraid, and I am ashamed to say that I fear something that I cannot even see.

I am not afraid of the dark, but it is the darkness that has driven my misfit family from our home and into hostile territory. I am not afraid to be alone, but I am jumpy as I wander forth on this day, with orders to find someone, anyone who can strengthen our group. Every shadow leaps at me - or, worse, creeps on my heels, following me like a stalking predator, slipping from tree to tree and rock to rock and threatening to swallow me. But they are just shadows, and it is I that moves, and somehow I manage to make it to the Threshold without any cause for panic.

But my home has been swallowed by demons. Where would anyone feel safe after that?

I sigh, and it is the only colourless noise I hear. Even in orangemoon, cardinals chirp a bright red song, and it twines around the other birdcalls that I hear in an intricate dance across my retinas. The grass, not nearly so lively, offers a dull bronze crunch, a dim, beating crackle on the edges of the avian symphony. My hoofbeats are a deep brown, spreading from beneath the grass's less-steady beat. And all of this is normal - all except the barely-there spread of ivory, there and gone as quickly as a blink. Perhaps I would write it off as just that, if not for the fact that my colours are as mental as they are physical, and I can no more turn them off by closing my eyes than stop breathing by going to sleep.

There is someone else here. My pulse quickens, the adrenaline of nerves flooding my system. Dark green swirls along the edges of my vision, a stark reality check from my wonderful (can you catch the sarcasm?) father. His form appears on my left, and he appears to be either laughing at me or yelling at me. To tell the truth, I'm not sure I ever knew the difference. "Oh, shut it," I mutter, offering a particularly foul curse in the tongue of my birth. He begins to paw the ground angrily. I can almost see the steam shooting from his ears - except, oh yeah, he isn't alive. He isn't really there. I shake my head, irritated, but he remains to taunt me, so I give up and simply move forward.

The pretty ivory colour had come from not too far ahead, and so I pick up a slow trot, hoping to catch up (and also hoping not to, seeing as I have recently been rather traumatized). Schwere trots alongside. As I catch up to my little ivory, I offer an admittedly forced smile and an attempt at a cheerful whinny. Upon arriving at her side, however, something about her makes my gaze soften. "Hello, my dear," I say sweetly, ignoring an angry Schwere in the background with a twitch of an ear, "You are new to this land, yes?"

"Talk talk talk."