If time were not linear, but instead a series of images and actions that stirred round and round without end, one would wonder what to do with it all. However, you, Gyda, appear careless of time and its importance. To you, it is a fastidious chore, always keeping it, watching it, and wishing it away. Time. Even as you tell yourself that it is extraneous and ultimately uncertain, somehow it has lately become a subject of your concern. When you left the Dragon’s Throat you felt as though you’d been liberated from the constructions of time spent learning, growing, and promising to become a contributing member of society. Yet, time has once again found you, a whispering, nettlesome thing, in order to remind you that it waits for no one and nothing. 

Perhaps that is why you waste away pretending to apply yourself to one thing or another, be it traveling or preparing, though you cannot say for what. Somehow all this wandering and wondering gives you purpose or reason enough to claim your own time well spent, even if you cannot always believe your own lies. That is why, on another day spent just like so many before, you find yourself exploring that which you do not know. You name trees that have already been named, try plants that have already been tried, and dream dreams that have already been dreamt. That is the purpose of you as a creature in a world where no one knows your name.

As you glide along the outer verges of the treeline, just beyond your favorite meadow, you regard the inner wood as a sentry, diligent and concentrated to a fault. During your time in the south you could recall soldiers doing much the same along those sandy fringes you left behind. However, it isn’t something you find yourself very partial to and you quickly retired to a leisurely stroll. That is, until you stumble upon an eccentric young stud shaded by the path ahead. He is much older than you and you find yourself uncertain, not like with Saoirse, for he had been a boy close to your own age. Funny too. However, this unicorn has seen more seasons and more truths than anyone you have met thus far. Maybe that is why you engage him from beyond, nervous and alert, but aware of common courtesy. 

“Great minds think alike,” you proffer whilst noting the route you share. It isn’t until you are close enough to decipher the vivid gold of his eyes that you also catch sight of the young buck alongside him. Both are intricately gilded with matching marks that you can never hope to replicate and both are equally intimidating in their own right. Yet, instead of noticing these things and maintaining your simple sense of modesty, you stare unabashed, alternating from one to the other. It is then that you realize just how horribly plain you must seem by comparison, a stone next to diamonds. “My name is Gyda,” you manage while gawking at the two. They appear a fortress together, lost amid some battle you cannot see or hear. It is likely something you cannot understand at your age, having been fairly fortunate in life as it stands, but you reason with yourself that age does not determine one’s ability to listen or distract. Just as Saoirse did for you in the Meadow so recently, you decide to provide a buffer between the unicorn and his thoughts. “Could you use some company?”

In some deep part of your mind you know that you are unrefined and unaccustomed to proper protocol, but also that those things have never stopped you before.