"...always cool because we were so high." Struck down in the middle of musings and magic, a girl drenched in flame tilts her ears and blinks. She has been walking through the snow and ice for as long as she thinks she can remember, certainly since the day began and, ended, and now begins again. She finds the cold invigorating, a stark and exciting contrast to the heat and sand of home (home, what is that?), a new challenge in an old world which, for once since the seamless days of her youth, she is passionately eager to come to know. Her brother's joy is not so palpable; he sits, curled tightly on the girl's stark withers, tails defending poor enormous ears from the chill. While the girl wanders, the boy waits, grumbling incoherently his mild distress.
She blithely ignores him, stretching out her neck to sniff the air, letting the blades of ice coat her lungs, burn her throat. She laughs, her young voice rolling off the expansive space to dance through the icy caves, into the cracks that let in faint sky. For once since she is happy to be alone, just she and her brother at the top of the world; for once she is content to stare at the open sky and the crystal towers, to speak where no-one can hear and smile so no-one can see and dance where no-one will step.
But someone has stepped, and in the echoes of the firechild's laugh the mare's voice is suddenly alight, filling the space in the girl's content and catching her by surprise. She freezes, eyes wide, and wonders what? and where?. but she cannot see the other, and as the words grow clear she realizes they must not be directed at her, for they are part of something greater, something vast. The red girl listens, entranced by the tale, and feels it drawing her closer to the source of the sound.
They're blurs behind a smooth, blue wall, they're shapes that speak of life and secrets told, indistinct and strange, and fascinating. A wall holds them at bay, and as she inches past it one comes into view, black and white and winged, the mare who speaks of pegasi and history. Onyx eyes stare at the mare, ears pricked forward to devour every aspect of the story, the world created, the yarns she weaves. Natraj raises, too, awoken from his sulk; leaning forward on her withers, he listens close. The pair are enraptured against their will, youths caught up in an older child's adventures.
It is not until the mare slips that Tandavi wakes from her daze, and her eyes snap up and she sees the boy, and realizes that she is among strangers, and feels alarm.
She wonders if she ought to say something- but the other mare is still speaking so the girl stays still, taking in the details of the unicorn boy. He is all lines and angles and ridge, his bones clearly visible, his horn barely there, and for once in her life she feels rather big. She has seen many boys, but none like this, and she finds herself as curious about him as she was the mare's story, drawn to the pair as a flame to fuel. Neither tastes of magic, so she knows she need not fear her ability causing harm, and, emboldened by this, she steps forward and opens her mouth, for once desirous to participate, to speak.
"I enjoyed your story," she says to the silence, and the words float heavy on her alto voice. "Is it true?" She does not doubt it, but floating islands are not something she knows. Rather, she imagines it to be like her mother's stories of her home of endless night: beautiful, strange, and true for another world that the girl will never share. She says no more, for she can think of no more to say, but her head remains high and her eyes shine bright, impassioned youth and curiosity blazoned across her gold-slashed face.
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