Her thoughts were not where they should be (at least, she didn’t think so, but she didn’t know what she should be thinking anyways); instead of concocting and fabricating ideas of sensuous ruin she was stuck on a loop of frustrated destruction, seeking some way to devastate the corpses making a mockery of life around her. (Stupid fucking fuckers.)  Listen to them—laughing, thumping, humping away, and she was here, all four hooves planted in the ground—why was she here?

Lips part, red eyes glisten; why did this happen?

Lilómiel crooned something soft and sweet to her, claws pressing on her withers. She could feel his fear seeping in through the nooks and crannies of her mind, his tender and misplaced concern feeding through the labyrinth of her musings. Why are you afraid? Except she already knew the answer.

What would happen if she just attacked? Tore at their blood, ripped it from their every orifice—boiled the snow beneath their feet, until they were screaming, until they were crying?

Why did she always think such things? Why couldn’t she be fucking normal?

(Because you’re fated to be more than normal.)

Nymeria exhaled slowly, shaking her head mournfully. The movement, although strangely comforting in nature, did little to dislodge the violence rooted in her breast. Instead of action, she took to inaction, picking up a lazy walk among the twisting shadows. The lithe sway and curve of the darkness—swelling and deflating, swirling and shifting—danced upon her spine and shoulders, rubbing the edges of her away until she was more shadow than life.

It felt strange to be alone when she was surrounded by… pairings.

Like a satellite in orbit, she found herself gravitating towards someone else. (What am I doing Lilómiel?) The stranger didn’t seem to be looking for company, resting beneath an old oak, and here Nymeria came anyways: intrusive, despite her discreteness, crude, despite her grace.

Nym pitied the woman for having to deal with her when she seemed so content otherwise.

A sly and cheeky smile uncoiled across her ashen lips; her ears pricked forwards, not quite casual in their movement. The wolf tilted her head, driving in along an angle towards the stranger, a long-legged saunter (swagger?) to bring herself parallel to the stranger’s hip. Despite a practically bewildering urge to be—well, be a bitch—Nymeria kept herself contained with a steely hand, preparing herself for a silk touch.

For a minute she stood in silence, casting her own red gaze out along the delicate pond, and then she tentatively cast a line into the sea, looking to hook the unicorn beside her.

“Do you feel alone?”

The mare's ear flicks back in acknowledgement, and the tension that had unknowingly coiled through Nymeria's sinews dissipated. She was faintly disappointed her presence had not been more surreptitious, but she was hardly surprised that her cover had been so quickly pulled away.

Now she sized up the stranger; their builds were distant relations, and their coats cousins. Nymeria was more curvaceous, robust, but the other mare was broad-barrelled and strong-legged, with a faint grace that belied some warmblood influence. She was feathered, albeit heavier than Nym, and her coat sleek and dark, with a pattern of silver flakes drifting down from over her spine. White socks, white horns, white face—but perhaps most unusually amber eyes. Amber, Nymeria thought, faintly incredulous; but nobody has amber eyes except for Confutatis. (Not that she was aware of, at least.)

Then she no longer had time to nitpick the stranger's details, as she was drawing up level to Själ's head.

(She couldn't be related to Confutatis, though, could she? It seems—it seems unlikely. But she does share a resemblence to my mother, even if...) Perhaps if Själ was a foal she could've been Volterra's (it would hardly surprise her now) but she was far too old for that.

The clouds were dark and heavy, low over the horizon. It did not feel as if it would take much effort to reach them. (Is this how pegasi feel? Forever thinking about the sky?) It would be strange to have wings—stranger still to be among those lush, dark clouds, with the wind combing through her mane... Nymeria shook her head to shake away the thoughts.

Always, the stranger murmured, and white vapor drifted from her mouth, curling up and away. Always—always resonated with Nym.

“I'm sorry,” she said. "Nobody deserves to be alone."

She meant well (she really did) but the words that rolled off her tongue—despite their genuine nature—hardly managed to strike a chord. Nymeria cursed herself for her hollowness, for her inability to offer more significant comfort; because despite the anger that simmered in her breast, she knew all too well what Själ meant. Always, she'd said; and wouldn't Nymeria, too, echo that sentiment in her place?

Surrounded by friends, enemies, strangers, faces she knew and faces she didn't: they all faded away eventually. Even her twin, a brother of the womb, had become unknowable to her. Who can you rely on but yourself?

Me. (That'd be Lilómiel.)

Nymeria let out a slow and heavy sigh, unspooling her gaze across the dead water. The reflections of the tree were jarringly obtuse, the branches' hard angles seemingly unworldly. It was a fitting background to the miserly nature of their conversation. Nym twitched an ear around to the stranger, the other swivelling away. Even the dullness of the winter air did not completely muffle the chaotic giggles and thuds of bodies—Nym wished that perhaps she had not met this mare here, that their conversation could continue without the interruptions of so-called love.

Was it any surprise, then, that the unicorn responded with an acerbic tongue? That her bitterness might be exaggerated by the influence of tender loyalty around them? Even to Nymeria those cries seemed foul—and Nymeria, despite herself, had had her fair share of daydreams about steamy stallions and heated flesh entwining. Those sounds were no longer a distant reality but a mocking prod at Nym's own inflated ego.

Why would you care?

How could she explain that in Själ's presence, her own furious rage, her own dismay, seemed less significant in face of their shared trials? How could she explain that she knew too well what Själ meant without becoming broken, weak? How could she explain that she'd always wanted a friend and had never been offered the fucking opportunity? Or that this—this warmed her heart, made her feel a little less alone, even though at first she'd only asked the question in jest?

“You're not the only one who feels alone," Nymeria murmured. There was something tantalizing—unconsciously sensuous—about her voice. "I... I guess I wish I had someone to rely on as well." She hesitated, faintly uncomfortable with her honesty (it felt like everything was exposed.) "I'm Nymeria."

Själ's amber eyes glowed not with light but with darkness, a seething storm seeking freedom from a cage of skin and bone. Looking at the unicorn, with her irises glinting in gold and copper and hued with amber, Nymeria wished she could know what brought upon such rage. It was unlike anything she'd seen before—and it bespoke an experience she did not want to experience herself.

For despite everything that had happened to her—Ophelia's challenge, Reginald's bullying, and worst of all the growing divide between her and Volterra—none of that made her rage. None of that made her feel (and perhaps this was only speculation) hopeless. It was easy to feel alone (she didn't have many friends to speak of) but she never fought against her situation with only dire desperation.

And she would never know intimately what made Själ so broken in this moment despite all her anger, or precisely why she'd be drawn to Själ. Sometimes she didn't need to know. If this worked out in the end—that was all she cared about right now. This was a perfect oppurtunity to capitalize on (callous as it sounded); she would not let it bypass her.

She'd wanted a friend for so long.

The frustration she'd glimpsed in the unicorn's gaze drained away; Nymeria stepped in closer, subtle and graceful. Själ, the unicorn said in turn—Nym sighed, and took to heart her words. Things—dare she say it?—were beginning to look tentatively up; the resentment always burrowing through Nymeria's veins gave way to fragile hope. Their honesty with one another had been unprecedented (in Nymeria's books.) This has to be a good sign.

It was. Själ professed reliability; Nymeria took a moment, savouring this budding growth between them. Instead of immediately answering she came in a little closer to Själ, ever so politely attempting to press their flanks together, and share a bit of warmth in the Frostfall day. It was then she said, simply and with more than a touch of clever consideration, “and I'll be here for you when you need me." A pause, and then, childish and naïve and knowing it, "friends?"

They were pressed together (shoulder-to-shoulder, eye-to-eye, Nymeria couldn't believe Själ hadn't stepped away)—and Nymeria's thoughts fell and tumbled away from logic and reason. She couldn't help but think how out of character this was of her, this audacity and desire and... desire? No, she thought critically, studying the heat that radiated from her heart. This isn't desire. (Except how could she pass judgement on something she'd never known?)

Her nostrils flare; all she can smell now is the woman beside her, broad-shouldered and strong. Something tremulous buds in her corroded arteries, tandem to flowers blooming in her lungs. (Cut her open, dissect her for study, and she'd be beautiful. But she'd be dead because of flowers being where they don't belong.)

The spider wolf mare delicately shook her head, dislodging the emotions that swelled out-of-control and not where they belonged. Instead she smiled to herself, savouring the moment. For once she was lucky; for once she had a promise of something better to look forward to. (At least that's what she hoped.) Friends, Själ confirmed. What did I start here? What would grow up from that which had been planted between them?

She could take it back, of course. All she would have to do is disappear into the night. Fade away. It was unlikely they would ever cross paths, what with the size of Helovia and Nymeria's crepuscular habits—but Nymeria didn't want to embrace solitude again when she'd just found new family. More than anything she wanted this to work between them, however fragile a beginning this might have.

Lilómiel growled softly then, white teeth flashing in the shadows. What is it? Nym lifted her head—and a cat-bird landed on her friend's haunches. (It was undoubtedly her companion, but Nym had never seen such a strange creature before.) Eyebrows rising a touch, Nym stared at it for a moment longer before refocusing her attention upon Själ and her rough voice.

More who are alone. The grullo blinked, shifted her weight, considered and weighed. It had never occurred to her that there might be others who were in need of family, of acceptance; it had always seemed a burden unique to her. She supposed, thinking about it now, that that was both arrogant and childish of her... and yet Själ offered a surprisingly appetizing course of action, even if unwittingly.

"We could help them," she said softly. "We could... care for them, like we will care for one another. Nobody deserves to be alone." (An echo, a sentiment, sure to stir the same emotions in Själ as it did in her.)

(Would she bite?)