the world is burning

Själ The once-princess swam on, unaware of the danger that lurked below.  Had she been in her right mind, she likely never would have gone into the water.  She didn’t know this land.  She didn’t know who or what may live in it.  The fact that she had gone into the stormy seas with so little regard for what might lurk in the depths was a testament to how much the transfer to this world had shaken her.  Whatever madness had possessed her mother, Själ was not one to strike out carelessly without a plan.  Well, not anymore, anyway.  And yet, here and now, she had done so.  Why? Well, why not? she asked herself bitterly.  Maybe I ought to have just stayed behind.  But she didn’t mean it, not really.  Shaken and afraid she might be, but suicidal?  Not hardly.  Even Ansgar ignored her dark thoughts (or the mare thought she did - it was hard to tell, broken as their bond was), knowing them to be nothing more than petulant griping. She landed on the shore and shook, beads of water spraying the sand.  Luckily for her, she’d made it to solid ground much more easily than whatever poor creature huddled in a lump further down the beach.  She could tell little about it from this distance, but it was rather dark in color and more than a little waterlogged.  With a shrug, she moved down the beach toward the other being.  What could a broken mound of flesh do to her?  At least she was on all fours and moving.  And she had Ansgar (sort of) and her daggers.  No, there was little threat to whatever it was that laid at the waters’ edge, if her assumptions were right. It was a bit stupid to assume anything about this gods-forsaken land, but, after all, Själ wasn’t in her right mind. She halted before the lump (for some reason, she thought of her mysterious snapping turtle friend from Helovia), tilting her head to the side as she stared down at him.  "Are you really half-drowned, or is it some kind of trick to get me to come closer before you try to stab me?" she asked in a tone of mild curiosity.  The stranger certainly looked half-drowned, but her instincts were starting to kick in again, and wariness kept her muscles tensed, just in case she needed to leap away.  And anyway, it never hurt to ask about a stranger’s intentions, did it? Suddenly, an eerie song drifted by on a breeze.  Själ’s head turned, almost of its own accord, as she looked for the source.  However strange the sound, it was almost pleasant, calling to her and enticing her a few steps away from the stranger on the sand.  "Where is it coming from? she murmured softly, almost to herself, seeming to have forgotten the stranger. "Talk." -Ansgar.-