You are learning, learning, learning; surely, it’s all you do. Learning so much for you little brain to handle, but it’s doing its best to handle it, I’m sure! For example: You understand, by sheer association, what the term hollow means. Good job, Enny! You know this, surely, simply by analyzing the feeling in your gut--that empty feelng.

That hollow feeling.

You’re hollow, Enyo. (It even rhymes with your name!)

Why are you so hollow, Enyo? There are plenty of things to be filled with, y’know: a crazy, jealous rage at your sister’s bold, vicious, favorable companion, built in the guise of Father’s own dutiful harpies; Ozzy is indeed becoming Father’s shadow, nicely. Or, you could be filled with a stinging, burning shame over that one time. You know exactly what I’m talking about. With the tears and the crying, the honest crying, and the fleeing from danger, so unlike a monster, so unlike your brood. You could be filled with that shame, if you wanted to.

The fact that your pretty tears so easily charmed those adult folk does nothing to diminish the disgraceful nature of your actions—you know this well. So why, little Enyo, do you stalk the lands of your new “home”, where they so graciously “adopted” you, with such a forlorn, empty feeling inside you instead of harboring a prickly feeling of humiliation? Frozen. No, actually, not frozen, because that may denote a reason for your numbness, a focal point, a personality (Ice Queen sitting regent on her Ice Throne). This numbness in you is directionless, sans source, un sens d’ennui qui est parfaitement fixé dans votre cœur. I’m not sure how to fix it, to be perfectly honest. Perhaps this does come from a personality. Perhaps this is just you.

You see something white in the distance, something clumsy bobbling along, and it’s out of boredom that you watch them struggle. Your eyes catch the slimness of their figure, an elegance wasted on hobbled joints; is this a mare? Ah, you don’t have much of a reference for ages. She is bigger, and smells of female--she is a mare to you.
You find her whiteness pretty, even though you know Father detests the splashes of it on one’s form. You are thankful that you were born without that disfigurement, to be born with white markings; Father already hems and haws over the blue of your face, shrugging it off, deciding it’s not too bad, I guess. You can still be beautiful, somehow. You preen at the thought. It’s the only time you feel a thing; when you think about Paaaaapaaa.

You go up to this white stranger, adorned with all sorts of frilly things which, surprisingly, catch your interest. Your walk is sure and smooth, something which may be offensive if it were a gesture you were trying to make. And maybe you are. You aren’t sure yet. “Hello,” you say, breathy and sweet, because you are a little girl, of course, “My name is Enyo. Who are you?” Your eyes are golden and sugary, sparkling at all the sparkling on the strange woman. “Why do you walk like that?” An innocent question, bubbled from the mouth of a babe; who could ever get mad at that?

"talk talk talk"

She asks you if your face is blue—a retort, a counterattack if you will, and you’re not sure what to make of it. Having a blue face isn’t as much of a hindrance as having an awful, unflattering walk; Father had decided her blue face isn’t so much of a disfigurement, and so, you can’t really find the correlation between the two traits. Unless the poor thing was born walking like a clumsy duck?

Or perhaps the blue on your face is horrible, an ugly blemish between your doe-like eyes, and Father is only pretending to be okay with it, being passively mocking towards something that may actually offend him—

Oh dear. Now you can’t stop thinking about it, can you. You will go and find the nearest source of water after this, and you will stare, and you will wonder if this Eurrth-ey actually has a point in pointing out a flaw in an otherwise flawless figure. You still wonder, though, if you can really trust the opinions of someone with such an ugly name. Eurrth-ey. You do not even know where it is from or why one would want to be named for a description of something brown and dirty.

"If you have to know, I got knocked about a bit while killing a god. I walk funny because of the battle scars."

You blink up at her, bright, big golden blinks, considering her words. “Oh,” you say, simply—the question answered, the mystery solved! You understand now: she is a liar.

Of course she was born with the deformity, otherwise she wouldn’t have been making up ludicrous stories to hide the shame of it. It all makes sense--and you promptly forgive her for the lie, understanding it, really feeling for her plight, because, honestly, she’s really quite gorgeous; you could stare at her for hours, at all her trinkets and sparkly things that really make her pop. You’d envy her if it weren’t for her walk, and perhaps she knows it, and so she had to tell you something to make her envy her even more! Except you’re just a tad smarter than that, you’d like to think.

You wonder if it’s worth remembering, this lie. This mare says she fought a god and walks funny because of it. You wonder if it’s something Father would want to know.

She asks you if you live here, and your lashes flutter and your gaze drifts away—for even with all the pretty things this Erthë presents you with, you feel yourself growing bored again, fast. “I do now, yes,” you say delicately, and a hoof is cocked primly before you as you paw the ground, “I’m new. My parents are dead. Nyx adopted me.” You give a tiny snort. “She is mother now.”

You do not realize how dispassionate your voice is as you recite the necessary phrases. Now that the excitement of the new story is past, you decide that it’s a boring lie that you must tell over and over and over again—especially compared to the glorious truth, that you are the Basilisk’s daughter, that your Father is a great, terrible monster, that all should kneel before you anyway, since you’re a princess by default. But no. You must denounce his name in front of company (who dares to lie to you and claim they know anything about gods and godhood) and pretend you are the daughter of weaker things who had the audacity to be devoured by vultures.

Sigh. So boring.

“You live here too?” You shoot suddenly to Erthë, “I’m sure you do, but I’ve never seen you before. Do your parents live here? Or maybe you have kids?” You’re curious, but only just so, only enough to keep her here instead of fluttering off to find something else than can bore you.


"talk talk talk"

Not old enough to have kids? That means nothing to you. You have no frame of reference for having or making babies, or any kind of knowledge about that sector of life (and it offends you, this gaping ignorance in your skull—) You can only tell that she’s taller than you, and older, and so she might’ve had kids, you can’t be sure. You shrug a little as an answer. You can’t help not knowing.

You watch and learn as she mentions her father—his name is Vadim, a token tucked and stored safely away—and how she is barely able to name a mother, Shadow. She is dead, like yours. You cock your head a little bit, at the hitch in her voice, the pauses, and you wonder if that’s how you should act from now on whenever you mention your dead fake mother. Would it be more convincing? For she’s caught onto your frustration, if only a little bit, about lying about Nyx, lying about Paaaaapa. She chides you on how you should be grateful for the lie, for the blemish on your lineage and pride and honor. How you’re an un-doc-umented child, an orphan, even though you know that’s not true, but you can’t tell everyone else that, can you, little Enyo? You’re stuck as a nothing.

You collapse on yourself, silent, because you can’t answer her, not yet at least. Your breast is burning with indignation, the reprimand to show gratitude when you’re so mad at this distasteful situation, and hot tears prick the corners of your eyes (weakness) out of your helpless fury.

But ah, you can use these. One might be grateful for being adopted so graciously by such kind adults, but how could one find gratitude in losing one’s parents before one even knows them, to snatch away a happy family before one even knows how to speak?

“What were their names? Your parents... do you know?"

Ah, an opening.

You avert your shadowy, glistening gaze. “No,” you say very, very softly, a breath, because you’re afraid of outright losing your composure and crying everywhere (you must keep poise), “I was too young…” You open your mouth to try and explain the lie further—Mommy was killed after giving birth, Daddy was killed protecting his vulnerable family from bandits, Nyx found us only after the blood had been shed— but your body is trained well and, right on cue, a tear breaks free from your lid, and you clamp your mouth shut, a crying little girl sad that she doesn’t even know her original parents’ names.  

You give a sniff and look at your feet. “I wish I did,” comes out small and piteous, and you duck down to wipe your face against your knee, to try and pull yourself together, because it’s a touchy subject (of course) and you want to steer away from it. “I like your things,” you say in a contrite voice, and your eyes sparkle with residual tears at the shiny things that Erthë wears. “Where did you get them?”


"talk talk talk"

Success.

Good, good job, Enyo! Oh, I’m so proud! That cheeriness in her voice as she responds to you, the way she leaves her nosy little questions in the air, to dissipate and disappear—yes, yes, I do believe you’ve pulled it off very well! You give a watery smile, hesitant, pulling yourself from your melancholy shell. You’re being cheered up. She’s telling you about her things.

Your eyes alight with golden interest upon everything she shows you—to her bow (a weapon), to the feathers she wears (one from a Goddess), to a bracelet given to her by Iona (who is a spy in the herd, very important) and your lids dry themselves and you hadn’t even released a sob. That’s all very fine and all, but even then you’re beginning to feel a stir of jealousy as she wonders why people give her so many things. It would be nice to be showered with gifts like this—to be completely decked and embroidered with all the little trinkets of gold and silver that adoring people thrust into your open, bemused palms. It’d be nice to be wanted and loved so totally, to be consumed by it, suffocated by it.

Erthë twirls, and she shimmers as she does so with all the things she wears, sparkling even more fiercely than your eyes alone ever could. Not to say your eyes are inferior of course; between the two of you and your two pairs of eyes, you decide you have the prettiest, rarest set, of course. But that does not mean their glittering light couldn't be amplified by something dangling from the neck, perched proudly on the ear. “I don’t have anything, no,” you say slowly, and there is a little mew of envy weaved in the wonder in your tone, “no one’s ever given me a present before. I’d love to get one.”

You scuff your hoof again, for the interest is beginning to wane again (again!) now that the tears have stopped and you’ve inquired about her treasures. You’re not interested in stealing—the scenario plays out in your head, of course, but the thought of taking something for yourself is incredibly dirty compared to the idea of being given things on the adoring backs of lesser creatures. You don’t want a forced victory, because, of course, it must be natural.

“Do…what do you do in the herd?” you ask, inquiring about the girl herself now, instead of just her trinkets. Might as well learn who it is you’re really talking to—how she matters, just like Paaaapa told you to do. “Do you have a job yet? Or are you still too young?”



"talk talk talk"