The cold was here and it sucked but at least, on that day, the snow stopped falling. Now there was just a blanket of it covering everything, making your feet wet wherever you go with chunks of snow clinging to your fetlocks. The air itself wasn’t biting like I expected winter to be--I guess the salt in the air kissed it just enough so the mildness of the sea kept it from being so harsh--but you could tell it was gonna be muddy and awful when spring broke through.

I was looking at that snow now; at the dips and the trees and the pristine shine of it coating large swaths of land inside the World’s Edge. No shadowy hoofprints to break the even, glistening edge of the crusty snowdrifts.  And its untouched nature bothered me in a way I couldn’t place as I stalked to and fro, Chico gliding high on the chilly air since my back was too hot and fuzzy for him at the moment to perch. I scanned the land with my eyes, my ears combing for something, a voice, a shout, an anything, and it was days later before all the nothing I’d seen or heard finally compelled me to say something. 

I guess, coming to live here, I’d just assumed I’d fall in line in whatever task best suited me. I didn’t consciously think about it since, y’know, that whole crisis with this being the Moon’s land and the scruple of whether or not I was a traitor against my own ideals by calling this place home--y’know, the usual. I just...stuck around, hung out, and played grab-ass for a season and a half waiting for the call to action from someone who needed me to kick ass or at least train to do so, since that was a thing I could actually do, y’know?

But the call never came. And I didn’t think about it cuz, what, it ain’t like it’s my business, right? Except now I was standing here in a snow-covered land, and it was untouched--pristine--unbroken by any kind of patrol. It hit me with a punch I wasn’t expecting, an anxiety that was starting to steadily creep in my bones. This guy...what’s his name….Kisamomo. Kisamoa. Yeah, whatever. Kisamama’s appearance got me thinking about shit. Like. There was always gonna be something coming stalking this way, and whether or not Kisa’s intent was to do us harm didn’t matter, cuz there was gonna come a time when something who did wanna fuck it all up was gonna crawl their way over here and who was gonna be there at the border to keep them from taking it?

Who was I gonna fight beside?

Maybe I missed something, I dunno, I ain’t infallible. Maybe there had been a meeting, a call to action, and I’d just been missing the shit. Whatever, whatever, I’ll take that blame if I deserved it, but there was still something that needed to be fixed regardless. So I stopped in my tracks in the trough I’d cut in the snow with my pacing and belted out, “HEY, WHO THE FUCK FIGHTS AROUND HERE?” and waited to see who would come out the woodwork with a wagging finger.





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Okay, so I’mma be real for a sec: I didn’t actually expect anyone to answer me. Anyone important, anyway. Like, I was frustrated and wanted some wheels to turn and some action to happen so I screamed, and figured “Well, at least someone’s gonna be all offended by the language I used and would come down and shake me a lil’”. That’s a solid thought-process, right?

I didn’t realize the Captain would heed my call.

I didn’t realize the fucking Queen would roll up.

“Uh--” I said, blinking a little, when this older, grayer mare stepped up first looking at me with these piercing blue eyes. Nyx, Captain. At least her introduction was the way I liked it; short and sweet and succinct. “Ros,” I responded, “Uh….warrior I guess.” I’d never met with this mare before--I guess she was my commanding officer, then?I felt distinctly awkward at having been the person to lasso her into a conference. It felt insolent, and this was one of the only times I wasn’t trying to be, and that I cared that I was.

Another came up, this one much younger than the both of us but built right to kick an ass if she had a mind to. She didn’t say anything though--dipping her head instead, displaying the feathers that lined down her back (Freaky) (Shut up)--and I cocked an eyebrow at her for a sec, wondering if she was gonna throw her name out at us. I mean, it was only fair, right?I had an itch against that kind of person (for reasons) and I would’ve said something about it if Alysanne hadn’t come up on us.

But she did, and my attention was pulled away at the Queen making an appearance. I gulped, and Chico dipped down from the sky on his owl wings, plopping in the snow to look up at the mare whose garden he had unknowingly shit in about a year ago. Had he apologized yet? Of fucking course not, so of course this meeting with the Queen had its own layer of awk.

But she was offering to learn how to fight, which raised my brows. If you don’t mind, of course. “O-of course not!” I stammered, “I--I mean, I don’t see why we would or anything, I was just...uh…” As I spoke, my eyes were darting around, looking for anyone else who might show up, wondering just how dangerous this escapade would be to include the Queen.

But no one else appeared. I trailed off, my head starting to whip around violently as I started pacing again, waiting for the snow to be broken with any other approaching body. “Is...is this it?” I asked incredulously, turning to Nyx with a cocked brow. “No, nuh-uh, we gotta have more warriors than this, right?” It wouldn't shock me that some people would just go "f you" to some random chick screaming for a fight. But...the Captain, a warrior (maybe) and the Queen? Who didn't even fight? C'mon now.





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The situation got a whole lot more scary when the tables were turned and my Captain turned to me for my opinion. Without a trace of snark, too. Like, I could’ve handled it if she wanted to scrap about me bein’ an ass and calling them all here without rank or authority--shit, I would’ve bit the bait at a heartbeat, but no, there was nothing ironic or challenging at all about the way she looked at me. About how they all looked at me, one of them with an alarmed zeal as she struck the ground with wordless energy.

Well….most of them looked at me. One of them, a black winged, smokey straggler came up, gave her name and rank, and let her eyes fall to ground. There was a !!! from Chico that I didn’t register at the moment and that he wasn’t really trying to explain right then, either. It was just a !!! that he’d need to remember to explain later.

I bit my lip at Nyx’s question--cuz, honestly, I did have ideas. At the very least I had an outline, an impression from long ago, back when I used to live in the Foothills: the memory of vague, colossal shadows tramping about; the constant presence of a patrol that made it damn-near impossible to go out and explore as an asshole kid; the persistent scent of sweat that permeated the sparring grounds (holy shit, do we actually have legitimate sparring grounds here?); the heavy tension of purpose laying on all of the herd like a thick blanket. All those feelings and more was synonymous to me with herd life, so it was a wonder that I immediately missed it without even really acknowledging its absence. So yeah. I had a rough idea on how things could work.

But I was also heavily aware that this was not the Foothills, because that was one of a few things that the Earth God himself decided was better dead (oops, salt). This was the Edge instead, a place that was creeping to the “loved” area of my headspace even though there was a ton of shit I still needed to sift through. Enough shit that briefly crossed my mind and made me wonder, for the briefest second, if this was an army I wanted to help build.

I bit my lip. Blue, green eyes were watching me, and I didn’t know how things were done in the World’s Edge anyway. But I was asked and after a moment of “Um”’s and “Er”’s and “I don’t--”’s, I tossed my head and rolled my shoulders, and there was a shift in everything of me--my voice, my stance, my uh...I guess my eyes changed too, but I can’t feel those directly to know for sure--because now I was getting down to business. “I think,” I said slowly, reviewing everything that was leaving my mouth before I spit it, “We’re entirely too damn small to be any use anywhere, but we can’t just wander around aimlessly. We need some kind of order. So--” I looked around, assessing all who was there and everything I could tell from them in a span of like, I ‘unno, 6 seconds? It wasn’t much but it was a start of a pitiful spreadsheet, at anyrate. “We need patrols--both around the herd, and outside of it. You--” I looked at the youngest of us, that strapping young ‘gal with an eagerness in her earnest eyes, “and me are gonna run borders, day and night, as hard as we can without killing each other. I’ll see you later to hash it out.” It was gonna suck balls but until we had more warriors we were gonna have to do what we had to. Even if we found volunteers from the other ranks, I didn’t feel comfortable with someone running the border who wasn’t trained or eager to kick an ass.

“You, Auriel,” I said, glancing at the latecomer’s smokey wings, “I need you to lead patrols out of herd, since you have--since you can fly.” I was nimble-quick in avoiding that touchy little sore on my personal pride. “You ain’t gotta run all over the goddamn map, but we need to know what’s moving around near us--like the Blue or the Meadow or--” I stopped, blinking; I took a step toward her, squinting for a moment, because something about her and the meadow jogged in my memory in a way that gave me pause. But I was too caught up in the torrent of shit to do that I turned away from her--slowly, grudgingly, but I couldn’t lose my train of thought.

“...Nyx,” I said, falling back into my thread of ideas she’d asked for, “I need both you and the Queen to recruit new soldiers, either from the herd or outside it from the Threshold.” I couldn’t ask the Queen to keep leaving on errands outside the territory--she had shit to do as is.

I looked at all of them. “These are primary tasks, but everything I just said applies to everyone else in part. If you leave, keep your eye out for something we might need to know. Get someone to join up as warrior. Bribe them, kiss their ass, I don’t give a damn but our priority now is to run patrol and recruit, goddamnit.” I paused, remembering what was probably the most important part. “Oh, and by the time autumn comes around I want to have fought each and every-fucking-one of you. Can’t keep getting fat and slow; if someone comes, we’re fucked on numbers so we gotta bite ‘em too hard for them to wanna keep messing with us.”

By the time I’d said everything on my mind and reeled it back in, I realized that Nyx had asked for goddamn ideas--but here I was barking at them, giving them directions, and I felt something burn in the back of my head that could’ve been shame if I wasn’t on such an adrenaline high. “So…” I finished lamely, not having the gall to ask “any questions?” but begging for someone to answer to whatever it was I had spit at them.




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