I AM IRON AND I FORGE MYSELF

Ok look, the silly little miniature deer has nothing to worry about. Just because Wessex is in the middle of a very confusing body change, doesn’t mean she’s going to attack someone’s companion like an enraged rhinoceros. Or a herd mate. Her hormones may be running haywire - especially when she’s just having all these conflicting emotions about the past the future. The horned soldier has a little more control over herself than the average hormonal teenager. Confused? Ok, let me clarify a couple of things.

This has happened to the young soldier several times now. And yes, every single time, it’s painfully unexpected The horns on her head all came in pairs (can you say week-long headaches?), aside from the spike on her nose, which hurt from her teeth to her eyes. Perhaps the most disconcerting change was to her eyes, when she happened to glance in a pond and find (much to shock and dismay) that blue-gray pupils changed to orange-yellow. Lizard eyes. Monster eyes.

Already graying from foalhood’s black base, she was merely a year old when those things almost killed her. Clearly, she survived, but whatever they were, they left her a little gift - much like zombies do to humans. A painful, odd, unusual gift; one that keeps her on her proverbial toes by lulling her into complacency by going months in between breakouts -- err, activations. It’s not contagious, as far as she knows, but the alterations themselves were enough to make some wary, and so she found herself regarded with distrust and suspicion from those who were supposed to safeguard her life - as sisters and brothers in arms.

A stallion’s voice quickly follows her curses, and Wessex’s gaze leaps to find an unknown unicorn standing before her. His words seem to imply that he may be joking, but his tone is flat and… almost hard. Her eyes narrow, trying to discern which way she should answer. It is an inconvenience and annoying to find this happening now, but nothing she is ashamed of. “Yes, and a lovely one at that,” she retorts. “But apparently I am meant more for the sword than beauty contests,” comes somewhat dryly, devoid of any bitterness one might expect her to have.

She’s always known her path was laid out in blood; markers coiled into her mother’s DNA and transferred to her, they made her heart sing in the midst of battle and find more satisfaction in an aching body than a long night’s tryst. Her legs were meant to be splattered in crimson, her horns sharpened to give or take life on a whim. Formidable. Feared. Like mother, like daughter.

“Who are you?” she asks calmly. Might as well meet someone new, for sleep would not come for the rest of the night.

W E S S E X