I AM IRON AND I FORGE MYSELF

He is not the first to give her such appraising, wondrous looks; Wessex’s Before and After pictures are quite, quite different, to the point where a discerning audience might question whether or not she’s the same woman as before. A miracle transformation indeed! Just call her the spokeswoman of mutants, she’ll sell the product with testimonials far better than most (but that’s because the rest are dead, so there isn’t much competition to begin with). If he were to see her again in a few short weeks, he would find her tail possesses such sharp points as well. Wessex is ever-changing, ever adapting to the unknown which both cursed her and made her more suitable to a warrior’s life. Everything about it - from a trained, observant eye to built-in weapons, Wessex is a walking advertisement - just as Noitcerru is for the heavens.

She shrugs at his proclamation. “All the herds are far away, but the Basin is closest. There’s a large waterfall due north, and pools to the south -” interrupted then, she finds his impatience tangible, his slight hypocrisy amusing. He is permitted to doubt she knows about the sky, but she cannot show her own barbed intelligence. Fear and need create rude bedfellow. “The trees open up north of here -” And once again, she is interrupted, but this time, by the odd half-horses that came plummeting through the trees, as if he knew somehow, that there was someone down here who needed a path to the sky, though the only words spoken were to Wessex herself.

That, combined with the strength to clear whole boughs from trees, makes Wessex wonder if he is some stunted giant - but no, he calls himself a hobbit, which is a term the horned mare’s never heard before. Either way, she finds him rather obnoxious with his prancing about the canopy and overly eager tones. Uncalled for exuberance grates on the stoic mare’s nerves. It is not dignified. The half horse has completely stolen the situation away from Wessex, so she again shrugs and prepares herself to chock it up to a loss; despite her own savior complex, she will not beg the winged stallion to choose her way. She will not foolishly compete with a pint-sized horse like this.

As for the hobbit’s invitation, she scoffs. They could likely fly faster than she could run, and she marvels that the little stallion doesn’t see the ridiculousness of it all. “Nah,” Wessex shoots back, and starts to turn back from whence she came. Over her shoulder, she offers parting words to Noitcerru. “If you get tired of him, you know where to find me.”

Part of her hopes her willingness to walk away and leave him be is far more appealing than the overly talkative Pippigrin. There's something to be said for privacy and being left alone when one wants to be.

W E S S E X