Яikyn

Others came.

At first, it was just some really pale girl, who seemed oddly familiar. She stood off in the distance, her diamond hooves and horn glinting in the spring sunlight. Across her lips is a bemused expression, one that appraises me as she stands in silence. I’m about to open up my big mouth when two others come, two others that I immediately recognize (it’s been much less time between the last I’d met them).

Själ, and Nymeria; they fly in together in a mad drumming of hooves, this look all across their faces like they know some secret about the world that I really would like to get in on. Near to one another, uncomfortably so, it reminds me of how twins should be, or lovers. As they are neither (the concept of two mares… y’know… totally incomprehensible to me at this point in my life), I’m left with the thought that they know some terribly wonderful secret. I’m alive with wonder as to what it could be when Själ says my name.

My jaw drops, mostly because Nymeria’s face takes on the look of a woman who is about to start yelling like women do, but also because it just keeps getting worse.

Zandora arrives (I glance at her from the narrowed barrel of Nymeria’s hostile gaze with what I hope is friendliness obscured by worry, a fleeting smile and nod permitted in the tension of the moment), but so does d’Arcy. And what d’Arcy says is probably the last thing I would have said to keep little miss moon-face from making me bleed all over my hillock (I’ll not soon forget her magic). My usually chatty self is lost in the conundrum of being besieged by so many female personas as once.

Looking at the blood and snow filly with a look of exasperation, I find that I recall Ráeru’s name in the gesture. Pulling my eyes away from the punchy d’Arcy I find the name literally spilling out of my mouth in surprise at actually recalling it.

"Ráeru, right?" I say, smiling despite the fact that Nymeria probably wants to kill me still, "d’Art and tiny lady’s kid?"

I will admit I do not remember tiny lady’s name. I will also admit that I may be stalling for words at this point, looking back at the hostile equine and lifting my head defensively. Taking a deep breath through my nose, I can’t help but notice something…

There is only one guy here, but three distinct guy smells.

One smells like… nothing, like the meadow, yet oddly familiar (and annoying). It could just be the outcast smell that is always here, because this meadow is outcast central. But the other man smell that isn’t my delightfully lustrous cologne is most certainly tinged with the odor of sand, and heat. One brow rises, because it’s familiar too. Some of the worry that I’m about to get punched by Nymeria in front of all these pretty women scoots over for the notion that, for some reason, we’re being spied on.

Maybe I’m just being paranoid? Besides, its not the best time to bring it up… Nym’s red eyes are still hatefully locked on me.

"I will admit I am not Calor," I say without looking at her, elevated crown titling my gaze out at nothing in particular (though it does return to her when I admit to lying for a reason other than lying’s sake), "but I lied for a good reason. And I tell like, everyone that. Almost everyone, anyway…”

I look at Själ with pleading exasperation, finding my words to conflict themselves more often than I’d like on regular days – today not being an exception, unfortunately.

“And I only have three pretend and real names, thank you very much, d’Arcy."

My eyes level out towards her with a friendly sort of grump face. I can’t hold much against her when she saved my ass back in the Edge like she did. I probably would have let Calor get pummeled by Mean Lady and Tembovu, were the rolls reversed. Looking back at Nymeria at the conclusion of it all, I still keep an ear out for any sounds that don’t belong to me, and all the lovely ladies present.

"Besides, you have to admit being less than honest about everything is… well, fun," the smile accompanying these words is sheepish, because I’m not the sort to say sorry; I let the grin say it for me, and she can take it or leave it.

in every heart a hole