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"