Night was falling when Nymeria arrived at the borders.

She was tempted to call out despite common sense, to seek admission rather than retreating for the night. The shadows that were cast by the dying sun were long and dark, stretching out towards her toes; but she still stared towards the falls and the pools and the greenery, longing to step over the invisible boundary. It was tantalizing to be so near to her idealistic perceptions, and while she knew logically that she could not enter, it felt to Nym as if the Falls personally mocked her ambition.

When the sun finally sank and the moon took His place, she turned and vanished into the agonizing familiarity of solitude.

Alone, Lilómiel mused; ... but not for long, Nymeria answered.
Tomorrow?
Tomorrow.

Still, she would not waste this night in idleness. Finding shelter beneath a great oak a fair stretch from the Falls, Nymeria closed her eyes and lapsed into silence as Lilómiel took wing. Against the brilliant canopy of stars he was but a dark smear, a fleeting shadow easily mistakable as a bat or owl; and this silhouette they took advantage of. It was through his eyes that Nym first glimpsed the interior of the Falls' borders—through his eyes, as he dipped and soared, the endless and myriad pools and waterfalls. Wind rustled their wings, chanting a lovely and lost hymn in their ears, as they skirted and explored and danced, like children, like fools, but united in their cause and purpose.

And what a change that makes.

---

They spent the night frolicking.
When morning came and the sun crested the dewy horizon Nymeria opened her eyes. The first breath she took through her own lungs was surprisingly cool, heavy and saturated with the waterfalls' moisture. Tentatively she reached for the well of magic lodged within her breast, stoking ember to flame to wildfire; the inferno blazed and licked through her bones, her veins, a corrosive and intoxicating rush of power. She doubted that she would need to use magic, but it was a comfort as she strode towards the Falls once again, prepared to make her first foray into herd life.

Her hooves slowed autonomically to a halt as she arrived at the border, full of tangled uncertainties and excitement and anxiety.

Lilómiel circled high above, a planet orbiting the sun.

There was another dragon.
Lilómiel noticed the male first; it was hard to un-notice him after. The sun glazed the dragon’s bronze scales in a halo of flame, painting him as a portrait of royal majesty. It made him appear both bigger and older than he was. Hubris’ appearance was not the end of the world for Nym—she was well accustomed to dragons, and she hadn’t yet felt the touch of dragon flame on her own skin—but it did strike Lilómiel’s nerves. If big, be big, he said sharply; Nym shrugged in answer. If all horses had equally powerful companions, she’d have a gold drake, not a black.

Still, he had a point. It was possible the equine companion of the royal was on foot nearby—in which case, she needed to prepare herself. For what? Well… that was the tricky part. She hadn’t done this bit before, and she supposed she would just have to fumble her way through the best she could.

You should go greet him, Nymeria thought.
Lilómiel chirped skeptically in answer, and didn’t bother otherwise with a response. With a snap of leathery wings, he banked downwards, circling in to land upon her withers. His fear—or worry, rather—left a sour taste in Nym’s mouth.

A wind pressed itself against her body, slithering down her curves and leaving a chill on her skin. Nymeria looked upwards again to see churning, mismatched wings blocking out the cerulean sky; she hastily backed away, clearing a space for the pegasus (or so she presumed) to land. Lilómiel chirped again, vocalizing approval. She good land.

As if it’s difficult.

Nymeria blinked, eyes flickering over the stranger’s body. It was difficult not to stare—it was one of the first times she had seen a hybrid, and this hybrid was a particularly difficult one to take in. The mare was colossal, all thick ribs and sloping hips and well-shaped (re: undeniably beautiful) bones. Her presence alone, overpowering in its greatness, took Nymeria’s breath away—and her markings. There was something very similar about the rigid white patterns over the mare’s skull, a more artistic representation of Nymeria’s own heritage.

It shook her.
You’re not the only one… so Ophelia had said. Had she been talking about this woman?

The sound of the mare’s voice jarred her back into her senses. Nymeria’s smile automatically flipped into place, a faintly incredulous curve of lips; Lilómiel trilled, his sing-song cadence punctuating Isopia’s question mark. His attention was not so much on the other mare as the other dragon, however—the royal, young and irresistible, offered a tempting opportunity.  The black fanned his wings, jaws parting to let loose a small gout of flame.
Show-off.

“I was hoping to talk to someone about joining the Herd, if it’s possible,” Nymeria answered, unconsciously mimicking the cadence of Isopia’s voice.

Nymeria’s own thoughts ran parallel to Isopia’s, although on a slightly different path. Like the demigoddess, she observed and analyzed and dissected—watched and waited and planned, for every possibility and for every misstep. The convoluted pattern of thinking, a quick skip from here-to-there, diverged and converged, moving steadily towards a disturbing and unsettling conclusion: the other mare was alien.

The hybrid's veiled face was both unknowable and archaic, a relic of another time reincarnated into dusted flesh and smouldering eyes. Nymeria was inherently wary of Isopia, more from intuition than any evidence; and yet she was direly drawn to her, haunted with the need to know. There were secrets burrowed away in that magnificent skull, she was certain of it; how could such an impossibly divine creature not have secrets? And whatever the hybrid had, Nymeria wished to divulge—maybe by peeling back that tattooed skin and examining the blood pulsing through those veins.

Nym had an inkling it was blue.

The grullo didn’t mention her uncertainties or her wariness (who would?) but instead kept her unfailingly polite mask in place. She wasn’t on steady footing here—the ground was unfamiliar both literally and figuratively. As she figured, the more she adhered to what was expected, the more likely she was to be accepted.

Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of joining a herd?
The thought came unbidden upon her, some residual piece of doubt planted deep in her subconscious. Her being here was supposed to be about acceptance, and while she was always acting out the stereotypes she liked to define herself with... she wasn’t sure she wanted that permanently.

It meant she was going to live a lie.

You wanted this, Lilómiel told her. For once, there was no judgment to his comment; he was only reprimanding her and her indecision. They had spent many nights wandering alone, nights spent in darkness and solitude. She didn’t want it to be that way anymore. What she wanted was a purpose for her existence other than exploring dead-quiet wastelands.

And friendship, although she didn’t want to say it.

It is hardly a sacrifice, Nymeria thought; you don’t have a choice any other way.
Nobody would want her if they knew she was pumped full of the same poisonous ambition and black desires and malicious wants as her mother.

This was the only way.
“What do you mean by the Storyteller?” Nymeria asked, a brow raising in eloquent confusion. There was something to the way Isopia had pronounced it—the Storyteller, with the ‘s’ carefully enunciated—that implied it was a particular role rather than generic.

Seer. The sound of it, the sibilant ’s’ and the slippery vowels, casually conveyed an intriguing mysticism. Nymeria’s ears pivoted forward in full, honing in on Isopia’s lecture. (And for the record, a lecture is precisely what it sounded like. The hybrid spoke with the practiced inflections of a teacher repeating a lesson that had become so ingrained in her head that it was hard, indisputable, and stagnant fact.) It wasn’t condescending, precisely… but it dripped with knowingness, the sort that made Nym feel like a fucking idiot in comparison. As for if the other mare was intentional in her baldly scientific approach or if it was a habit, that was more difficult to tell. Either way, it indicated that the (apparently) older mare was intelligent—whether by her playing the situation to her advantage or her sheer wealth of knowledge.

Overthinking, Lilómiel chipped in drily and wisely while his claws tightened on her shoulders. Nymeria resisted the urge to snort; instead she gently scolded him. There’s no flaw in being too cautious, Lil.

There was absolutely nothing the small black could've said that would prevent her from overanalyzing every one of Isopia’s next words—and what was practically her denouement of the Helovian gods. Nymeria’s brows twitched momentarily upwards in surprised reflex; she wondered if everyone in the Hidden Falls shared such a bold view. (She also wondered if they would all be smited by lightning for a display of ignorance like that.) While Nymeria had never personally had experience with the gods, that didn’t change that they were still gods. And while she supposed that Isopia's suggestion could be true... that was a wise way to approach the gods, or generally live in their domain with. They were still immortal divinities who were able to bestow blessings and curses on whoever they wanted.

On an alternate train of thought, Nymeria thought being able to commune with the gods still sounded cool as fuck.

There was a pause between them, but the grullo didn’t break it. It was easy enough to see that Isopia was building to something—and when Isopia asked the question Nymeria had expected from the start, it was hardly a surprise. Prior to her arrival at the Falls Nym had prepared a suitably benign answer, but she nevertheless allowed for a pause. It would look vaguely suspicious, she mused, if she jumped the gun on this answer.

“I want a purpose,” she began, with her lies cloaked in truth and her deceit based in honesty. Another pause—and “a reason to live beyond existing for the sake of it. I, um, confess that this herd was not chosen for any particular reason, other than that I hoped I might find my brother here. I don’t know much of the herds around Helovia… but I figured this was as good a place as any to start.”

Nymeria wanted to tilt her head but resisted the impulse. She hadn’t expected a shrug from Isopia—and she wanted to know why she cared so little. You’d think, after all, that accepting a stranger into your herd was a big deal—they might be planning to slaughter you, or steal as much as they could, or hold hostage your children. Except apparently not.

Were all the herds like this? So… uncaring? What did it mean their leaders were like? Isopia, for all her grandeur, was undoubtedly young—and a Storyteller, a mouthpiece for the fucking gods, to boot. Nym thought she should be old and wizened to have such power at her beck and call—but apparently not.

She supposed it would make her plans easier—naive fools were easier to manipulate than experienced generals. Still… it was… disappointing. Don’t judge, Nymeria scolded herself; you'll get a swift kick in the ass if it turns out Isopia is an anomaly. Others might care more about who resided in their newfound haven. In all honesty, however, Nymeria rather thought taking the Hidden Falls as opposed to staying in the World’s Edge was cowardice more than bravery. Mortals were much easier to deal with than gods.

Their problem, Nym decided. It was an interesting train of thought to dissect the personal decisions behind the invasion, but it would not greatly affect her pursuits.

“Volterra,” the grullo answered, “he’s a hand or so taller than me and quite a bit more muscular. Black, with a white face and red eyes. He’s…” Nymeria didn’t bother finishing with that sentence. Saying he was argumentative and sexist and didn’t think Nym was good enough to hold her own was not necessary; the physical descriptor should be more than enough.
Besides, even if she sometimes hated him, he was still her brother and she loved him more dearly than almost anything else in this world.

She shook away her thoughts like a dog ridding itself of water. “A spy, if possible."

No matter how acute her senses, Nymeria did not have her aunt’s magical abilities (re: for all her longing, she could not read minds.) The interval between Volterra’s description and Isopia’s answer was no lengthier than usual, and nor could Nymeria ascribe any particular significance to it. In that thread of time slipped by a secret, one vast and unknowable; one that Nymeria would not learn today.

Lilómiel chirped. The sound was quiet and yet loud in the relatively silent forest, a sort of vague encouragement directed towards the bronze dragon settled on Isopia’s shoulders.

Why?

Wings whispered and flexed as Lil snorted, smoke curling up from his nostrils. If she didn’t know better, she might’ve thought he was putting on a mating display.
You aren’t, right?

His mind pushed back against hers, a lick of flame behind it. The grullo’s gaze cleared again; mentally, she gave Lil a final and gentle shrug. With another chirp and a whistle, he took off, circling towards Isopia and Hubris. It seemed Isopia was past of point of guardedness (if Nym could really say she was “guarded”), and it seemed… seemed as if Nymeria was in.

« Bronze, » Lilómiel dictated to Hubris. His voice—if Nymeria could call it that—wasn't so much a sound as an intrepid feeling. Never had she heard him... talk?—if it was talking; except it wasn't talking. The cadence was Lil's own language, conveyed through the most delicate and subtle twitches of his wings and feathers, a minuscule gesture towards the bronze's glistening scales. The only reason Nym could understand it was through the echo of his "voice" in her head.

Lil's red eyes flashed towards Isopia—his tongue flickered out over his lips as he backbeat his wings, hovering several feet away from Isopia. Despite her apparent uncaring, he was too cautious, too wary, to come closer. « Friend, » he said (almost on afterthought), with a mischievous sort of lilt punctuated by an extra-hard beat of his wings.

"Thank you," Nymeria said, dragging her attention away from the black's antics (although not with a twinge of annoyance.) She hesitates—seeking for an addition to her thanks—before realizing it was never given.

"You never told me your name...?"

There was a thrum of heavy wings as the bronze lurched ungracefully up into the air. Lilómiel cawed his delight, his white teeth gleaming, and peeled away, returning to Nymeria's shoulders. The grullo mare blinked as he settled upon the mass of scar tissue; she couldn't entirely tell if his badge of friendship was genuine or just another way to bring Nymeria and him closer to the Storyteller. Nor did the dragon come forward with any explanation for his sudden change of heart, and his willingness to flounce about like a fool. It's rude, the grullo told him firmly, but he avoided her chastisement with demure ease. Whatever the truth of his intents, it was clear he had no plans in sharing it (at least not today.)

Kis holló? Nymeria's diplomatic expression did not quaver—but her heart skipped a beat. The Hungarian origins of that name were undeniable, and, more than anything, it sounded precisely like a pet name Volterra would give to someone. Why he would choose little and raven she didn't know; but... presuming it was given by Volt, he would've had his reasons. Nym darkened within, turning, examining, the nickname from every angle, searching for truth, or evidence of a lie. Outwardly, it seemed as if the Storyteller realized she had said something wrong; she turned her head away, and her jaws clenched together. It was not enough to draw a satisfactory conclusion—and thus Nymeria tucked away the name for future reference.

"Oké, kicsit holló," the grullo said casually. The oké sounded linguistically similar to okay, a subtle prod at the Storyteller's consciousness. Will she notice?

Finished with the formalities, Nymeria did not bother with a goodbye when the Storyteller turned to leave. Lilómiel gave one last chirp of farewell before taking off again into the skies, where he was forever more comfortable. What do you think? She asked of him, but he steadfastly ignored her. It was horse business, he had decided; and he did not like to get caught up in horse business unless absolutely necessary.

Thanks for nothing, you ass.
With a snort, Nymeria began to move deeper into the Falls to seek out the mysterious Knox.