Player is absent until
She turns to Neaera- and it is not Neaera at all, but another, wingless, slight, another child cast out upon this world. Savera's ears dip and rise, uncertainty rising vice-like in her chest. She peers out, grey-gazed, through the mire and toward the interloper - is this new world populated entirely by fillies? - distracted from the fragmented world by this flickering figure, this newcomer into their night. Inter-esting, the creamy girl says, and Savera rolls the word around inside her head, tastes it on her tongue and the roof of her mouth. It is a graceless word, intriguing, metallic, a barby thing with sharp edges and a cool interior. She parrots it lovingly, "Inter-esting," a look of delight creeping into her sterling eyes. She nods agreement - Yes, inter-esting, bottle brush tail flicking with pleasure. She looks back over the precipice, ready to invite this new stranger closer, to induce her into peering alongside her and into the unknown-
-but the unknown is peering back, and Savera freezes, enchanted, her pale eyes affixed to the dark ones that glare back below. Light glitters on the surface of the water, lights that are cut by a jagged fin, a slicing arc of vicious black that threatens and looms like a shadow on the moon. The storm is growing stronger, wind hissing warnings to the errant child; lightning illuminates the great behemoth in the depths below. Foolishly, brazenly, the filly steps closer, her cloven hooves gripping the edge of the world, unafraid, unable to comprehend the danger that dances at the edge of everything here. "Inter-esting," she whispers again, softly, awe in her voice. On her back Devi hoots a shrill warning, suddenly afraid, her instincts so much better than the starlit child despite her faulty sight. Her mind barges into the little filly's, reining her back with such vehement force that the girl trips back, stumbling away from that seductive precipice.
we might be hollow, but we're brave
