The river. It’s a place the mare has never seen before and yet, she can sense that she should be afraid of it. The way the water moves swiftly is an invitation for jumpers, for those that want to end their lives before they can even begin. But Sloane is somewhat soothed by this feeling. It’s an invitation she has so often received and never really entertained.

But here, as she stands at the very edge of a rocky cliff, her eyes peer down at the rushing water. It’s so easy to think just one small step forward and she could be out of this hell for good. One small step can end the suffering she doesn’t like to admit that she has.

Her whole life she has always tried to be the strong, brave one. The one who fears nothing and no one all the same. But it’s in this moment that she allows mortality to settle upon her thoughts. She allows herself to feel just how lonely she is. This life has not been easy for Sloane. Fighting from the start to be accepted and taken seriously has taken its toll on the female. She’s tired of fighting. For once, she dares to hope that one think might be given to her.

And yet, she does not take that step forward. She cannot appear as a coward, though she might hate the world she lives in. Sloane thinks too much of her pride and her appearance to simply give up that easily. She refuses to be labeled a coward. She has fought too hard in this life for such labels. She deserves a better label like fearless or desirable.

It’s while her brain is sifting through these thoughts and emotions that she hears the click of a rock behind her. Someone has kicked a pebble and she hears it race along the rocky ledge. She does not address the stranger. The only indication that she has heard the individual is the way her ears flick back towards the sound. Eyes still peer down at the river. What does this stranger want? Do they not know it is rude to interrupt private reflection?

@Ipomoea

As he speaks, she can feel the way her ears (previously poised to listen for the sounds he’s making) flatten against her skull. To say she is annoyed would be an understatement. Here she was, silently reflecting about what it might feel like to finally lose herself over the edge of this very cliff. While she would never end her life in such a manner, she did entertain the idea from time to time. It seemed like a reasonable use of time. After all, what else would she do here? She had no friends, no real meaningful relationships in this placed. She was a nobody. No body bought and sold secrets like from where she had come from. Finding her niche in this new world was proving more difficult than she had originally thought.

His voice is soft, almost angelic, and it makes Sloane want to roll her eyes. She wishes she knew how he could sound so happy all the time. She was rarely happy. He says he hopes he’s not disturbing her, but she knows that they both know he was. He was interrupting silent reflection. “I was only self-loathing and self-reflecting.” Unlike his voice, hers was gruff and short. While she did not appear agitated, there was an annoyed undertone that he may perhaps pick up on. She emphasized the word “self” to let him know that this was her time, a time for her to come to grips with her own reality…a reality she didn’t need his help finding.

And yet, as Sloane turned to look at the approaching stallion, Sloane knew that this stranger was no stranger at all. While she hadn’t formally met him, she had seem him around Delumine before. In fact, if her memory served her correctly (which it usually did), he was high ranking. Perhaps she should be a little nicer. After all, she didn’t want her little private island taken away from her. “…but I suppose I could entertain company.” Entertaining was never something that she had been good at, but she supposed now was as good a time as any. “…do you think it hurts?” Eyes looked back down over the cliff, her thoughts wandering about the fall. She supposed it would hurt, with all the jagged rocks below, but perhaps whoever fell over the edge would die instantly. Most would want a painless death.

@Ipomoea

While Sloane had never been suicidal, she had seen many who were. She had seen the way some would launch themselves over a cliff, heard the way their bodies slammed against the jagged rocks on the way down. She never understood why someone might want to take the easy way out, to end a life before it could really even begin. Sloane may be strange, anti-social, and illusive, but one thing that she would never be was suicidal. Such an idea was seen as cowardness and a coward she was not.

She can hear the way his steps come closer and her ears track his movement. She was not a fan of close contact, so she made sure that he was not getting too close to her. She might be tolerating of company right now, but that did not mean that she wanted to waltz hand-in-hand at sunset with him. She had to work up to such things and honestly, she wasn’t sure if she would ever trust someone enough to let them close enough to touch her.

However, he does seem to want to participate in the conversation that she had chosen, although grim as it was. She supposed he was right, that it would hurt. She supposed it might be painless if the individual landing in such a way to snap a neck or bash a skull in. Perhaps then it would be a painless death. But really, what death was painless? “Some say that time is freeing…as if they left all their cares on the edge and just freed themselves from all the things tying them down.” She had once stood by another who had thrown himself over a cliff. He wanted to feel free of everything. He said that in that moment he might get a chance to true feel as though he had let go of everything. For him, it had been worth his untimely death.

But it was his question about who could really say for sure if the drop would hurt that has her head slowly turning towards him. She is unsure of what to say. She’s terrible at making small talk and she has never been very good at it. She sighs, there is a heaviness to her sigh, perhaps a sign that she is far more unhappy than she appears.

Turning, she turns to face him fully, her body parallel to the river below. “Tell me, what is Delumine like?” She has a thirst for knowledge that is almost insatiable. While she has been in Delumine for some time, she still does not have a feel for how this kingdom is. So many things have happened here, so many things that have shaped her perception of the place. Surely there was more to Delumine than death and destruction. Had she found herself in a court of hearts and flowers? She might die if she had.

@Ipomoea

What Ipomoea did not know what Sloane had once been a happy child. Well, happier than she was now. She had the innocence of a child, the ability to see things that adults could not. And yet, being a triplet had worn her already unloving mothing down. Someone had to go…and it had been Sloane. So from the moment she had been born, she had been pushed away, picked on, told that she was unimportant. A seed of self-doubt and self-loathing had been planted and had begun to grow. It had made her life hostile to the point that she weaned herself early and then left her family behind. Perhaps if the environment had been different, she would have had the personality of the stallion before her. But unfortunately, that was not the life she had been given.

These sorts of thoughts plagued her mind often. She wondered what life would be like had she grown up different, about what she might have been like if she really knew her mother, father and her siblings. What would her life be like if she had never found Novus? If Rift had never swallowed her whole and spit her out here? So many questions, so many things that she wanted answers to. And yet, she had no answers.

And so, she settles on finding out information about something that she knows she can get answers to. She wants to know about Delumine, about what makes this place tick. What about this place kept those here that called it home. She may be relatively new, but she knew this place had history. She had seen the libraries, the way the scrolls filled the place from floor to ceiling. So much history and she couldn’t say she knew much of anything about this place or of Novus as a whole. And so, she asks him.

When he begins to speak, she turns her head to better hear him. Feet take her a step forward, a step closer towards him so she might be able to hear him over the roar of the whitecaps below. She listens attentively, but she is confused about how such a place can be quiet and yet loud. She says nothing however, trying to focus on the fact that Delumine is a place of learning. Sloane likes to learn.

But there is a change in his voice. The way he says this place celebrates life and living is shadowed by a tone she’s heard before. He’s hesitant, but then he continues, saying that this place can be somber. While these people crave knowledge, knowledge can come with a high price. This too, she knows well enough. “All things come with a price.” Everything from giving life to another, to taking one. To sharing a secret or making a moment. Everything you lived and breathe ultimately came at a price for someone. It might not be a price paid by you or paid at that time, but everyone would pay up eventually. That’s just how life worked. Did the people of Delumine not understand this?

He doesn’t linger on that piece of information, preferring to dwell on the happier thoughts of this place. It didn’t surprise her, not really. After all, she can see the way he looks at the world through foggy glasses. He chooses to see happiness and hope where she chooses to see reality. They each had a very different way of looking at life but each was entitled to their own opinion.

But then he continues, saying that above all, Delumine is his home. She sighs. “I have never had a home.” She’s always been a wanderer, lurking within the shadows and trying to find someplace that she might belong. But as of yet, nothing has captured her attention for long. She moves from one home to the next with each one just being a temporary residence. Nothing drew her in and kept her there. She was unsure if Delumine would be any different than the “homes” she’s known before. “I have yet to find my…niche, as you call it.” She still felt like a stranger, like an outsider. Perhaps it was because she could be hard to get along. No everyone appreciated her sarcasm. And yet, here Ipomoea had discovered a side of Sloane that not many ever got to see. The more self-conscious side, the side she always was trying to surprise.

@Ipomoea

She follows him as he inches away, leading her away from the roaring riven and further inland where it might be considered safer. And yet, it was the riven that seemed to clear her thoughts. Ironically, it was the violent crashing of waves and the sounds of water against rock that helped her to find peace and serenity. It helped to clear her mind and keep her sharp. But it was the quiet of the meadow that allowed her thoughts to wander onto things it probably should not wander onto…onto things that might hurt herself one day.

They speak of Delumine, mostly of the good things, but some of the bad. Delumine was a place full of life and celebrations. It was also a place full of knowledge. He claimed that some knowledge came with a price and she informed him that everything came at a price. It might not be a big price or one so easily seen, but it would unveil itself over time. Some prices were so easy to pay while others took a lifetime and the debt never paid. But she says nothing more on the matter, for nothing else needed to be said.

She admits that she has not found her niche in Delumine, that this place still feels foreign and unwelcoming. Sure, there were kind souls that dwelled here, souls that welcomed her, but this place still felt unwelcoming. It wasn’t there fault. After all, Sloane was no so easily to get to know or get along with.

He admits that he too, did not have a home for a long time. Then he understood what it meant to be homeless, to never feeling as though he belonged somewhere. However, he claims that he found a home in Delumine, that he found his niche. He appeared happy, though she couldn’t be sure that he didn’t feel that way all the time. He struck her as one of those individuals that seemed to always be happy, even if the sky was grey. Sloane was not that type of person. When the sky was grey, she felt every shade.

He continues, claiming that perhaps her niche was here, somewhere, just waiting to be discovered. She doubted his words, much like she doubted the weather these days. Sighing, she looked at him. “I don’t know how to be a part of something greater - it’s not in my nature.” Then again, what was in her nature? Could it be that what she thought was her nature was really just her way of coping? Perhaps she was never meant to be the person she had become. What if it was all a façade and she was nothing?

She sighed as she picked up her stride, coming to walk alongside him. Her gait now matched his as they traveled towards the edge of the forest. “If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m not exactly the person people are quick to befriend.” She had no friends. She preferred her little island off by herself. Others were so different that she had no idea how to navigate a friendship with them. Then again, she didn’t blame them for the same opinion of her. It was hard to get to know a monster such as herself.

@Ipomoea