life's but a walking shadow
Indra has been learning and re-learning the contours of Terrastella, her iron hooves trailing prints along the cliffs and beaches, across the meadows, between the trees. She has not dared, yet, to venture up into the swamplands. She knows too well how much they will have changed, and the knowing bites deep, even as she steels herself against it.
So it is among the fields that the unicorn finds herself this evening, the twilit sky casting her silver sides with a violet glow and deepening the wine of her mane to an inky mulberry. Nightfall has always whispered to her in lonely, private way, and for the moment she is glad of the quiet that has cloaked the court of late. During the day the empty hallways of the keep echo eerily with her hoofsteps; the deserted streets feel like a depressing mockery of their usual bustle and noise. Come dusk, though, Indra is always grateful for the silence, and the peace, and the chance to collect her thoughts.
She is adjusting, slowly, to the world outside the riftlands. The Ilati of her childhood are gone, centuries gone, but a few of their descendants yet remain, and that is a comfort, even as she senses that her place is no longer among them. It is a different shared history that holds more sway for her now—the kinship of those who have walked her homelands, known her people, escaped the rift. There is something that binds them, that calls to all of them, even those she has never known except by passing recognition.
And there are those that she does know: the wild, painted mare of the ghost-plain; the time-walking young queen of Terrastella. Furious as she is with Florentine, Indra cannot deny the relief she felt to discover the flower girl had lived. She does not yet understand what has brought them all together, here, in Novus, but she can feel it, like pressure building on the distant horizon, and she is ready for the storm to break.
So lost is she in thought that Indra does not notice the stranger until the other mare has spoken. Hail Vespera, the pegasus greets her—a favorite salutation among these parts. Indra, never having been much of the religious sort, merely dips her horn in response. “I don’t think we’ve met,” she offers. “I’m Indra.” She takes in the stranger’s stern posture, the flicker of weariness in her eyes. “You look like you’ve had a long day.”
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