The woman most regretfully does not seem able to even remember what comes naturally to her body, and I glance over at her with a stern and judgmental glance. Even Hemera remembered her skills, as little else as she retained of herself in her madness, and all that this unicorn had been fated to was a knock on the head that had obviously left her whole enough to speak and remember how to get home after a time. She remembered the name of Midas, at least, but to not remember herself? It was a shame.

I return my eyes coldly to the distance ahead of us, and dog wags her tail almost in apology at my stern expression and often rude demeanor. While she can touch upon my memories of once being a proud princess obeyed and respected by all I met, she cannot truly remember them, and she is too humble a beast to understand that dominance is a hard trait to forget.

"A noble career," I chose over my various other thoughts and replies, more eagerly latching my words onto the question she asks me – I am not foolish or stupid in very many ways and talented in hundreds, and I’m proud of it, "I study history, mostly, though I understand much of the arcane and of nature because they are one and the same. All things worth knowing hold foundations in the truths of the past."

A great black feline not unlike the younger one that had accompanied the painted hen I’d met recently in the waters of the Falls approaches, followed in tow by a white blanketed mare of red coloration and sweet demeanor. Wingless and crownless, she is plain, and the preferred company to the horned thing that I guide to the stone pews that often house the proud painted liege of the lands, though I do not know her name.

I remember her face, however, and know that her talents lie in the healing arts, a suitable task for a female of her breeding and nature. Whether or not the teachings of my homeland are viable in the world outside her cruel boundaries is a subject I haven’t tested, but I’ve seen time and time again an equine healer with skills to surpass some of their winged tutors.

Kindly, Kiara introduces herself and she offers her assistance to the dark mare, who refuses the offer and earns another long and stern glance from myself as she claims to have problems but no problems at all. With a control practiced over years, I manage to pull my eyelids shut and to breathe a slow, deep drink of air, soothing against the riot of my blood and the myriad tugs at my soul that wish to drag me downwards into the earth’s burning core while lifting me high in praise of the wind.

As her companion is introduced my tail curls loosely around my hocks, agitation at having been assumed, once again, to be a coward almost enough to steal my temporary serenity re-earned in the quiet behind my own eyelids. That Serene (a stab of pain, it burns, it writhes; why must she be named so?) again asks after Midas is bothersome to me, but with another push of forced calm I still the bell long enough to see clearly, to think with thoughts that are my own.

I probably seem mad.

"Cealestis, and Skýlos," I offer first, and Dog cheerfully grins and beats her tail against the earth, ignorant to the giant cat as I try to be to the demons that roar within me, "she claims to have come here and suffered an accident shortly there after. I do not know her from the dark side of a stone and cannot offer her welcome, though she obviously has suffered cranial damage of some sort and seems to be truthful in her tale."

@[Kiara]

Cealestis