when all is said and done.

Varuna looks on with enraptured curiosity. He has not seen anything quite like her, even in the belly of the rift. Here in the portal, all manner of horse are sucked in and examined by the presence, picked clean of the pieces it can devour and then moved on from when it is finished like a greedy, unsatisfied child.

Of course, the rift also gives. Varuna's skeletal muzzle glows in the shadows as he watches, a reminder of the Kaos god. Once, Varuna hated him. The shadow-beast took his mother, orphaned him, ripped away all normalcy and good feeling. The yearling's memory of a time before is fractured—brief flashes and wispy impersonations; smoke and mirrors. He's come to sympathize with Kisamoa, perhaps even pity him for the crippled monstrosity he is. The gods of Helovia were arrogant, blasphemous. It is no wonder Helovia fell to ruin. If there is anyone to hate, it is the gods of his birth, who abandoned and damned him. 

The forces of the rift, on the other hand, are always there. They adopted him... more or less... and the child (who is swiftly growing into a stallion) feels a deep sense of loyalty to the rift—perhaps even loves the treacherous world between worlds in the way Varuna knows love, which is a tenuous and suspicious thing.

Laughter splits the silence (paying no attention to the constant patter of rain) and Varuna's ears are upright. 

She seems to know the presence, speaks to it directly. He finds this interesting, since most of those who wind up in the portal are ripped out of their worlds and cow away from the shadows, the blinking eyes, the feral, corrupted magic beckoning from the beyond. She is a horror in and of herself, sickly-looking and stretched to unnatural proportions. He wonders if her faces are a conglomeration of other souls sharing a body, like Kisamoa, and thinks she belongs here.

He never makes himself known, but watches quietly, curiously, as the presence drags a hungry talon down her back and disappears just as quickly as it came.

@Miin