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SHEBA
Someone is in the rotunda. You are dozing in the trees nearby when a muffled thud catches your attention. Rheumy eyes snap open warily, and you raise your head, trying to catch the intruder’s scent on the breeze. Has one of your old comrades come to pay you a visit? But the wind is not blowing your way, and you cannot discern who has unwittingly joined you. Well, that’s unusual, you think, moving slowly through the foliage. You’re aiming to angle yourself so that you can see through the structure’s main opening, but the process takes you some time—not just because you are trying to be quiet, but because it is physically impossible to do otherwise. This creaky body won’t let you move that fast, even if you wanted to, you think bitterly, trying to peer past the pillars and iron curls to the rotunda’s floor. Who is it?
For a moment, you linger in suspense, for you half-expect it to be some old member of the Regime, come to collect you. Confutatis stood on these very steps once, after all, and you’d gotten the impression that this place had become a sort of home base for the band of mercenaries and fanatics. But just as this bright day is so different from the pitch black shadows in which you met once upon a time, the figure inside is nowhere near dangerous looking. It’s a silly little pegasus, no doubt come to enjoy the light show on her coat. Heaven knows that you used to do that enough…that is, until the rather unfortunate encounter that turned you into what you are now. Now, you never set foot in the rotunda during the daylight hours—you can’t stand the beauty that you cannot have.
Still though, you’re feeling a little possessive of your pavilion, which is what leads you to step out of the trees unannounced and march (well, really plod) up to the insolent thing. “Who are you?” you ask grumpily, looking rather pointedly from the girl to the gazebo.
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