Six years of being companions felt like eons at times.
Once just as cursed and unwanted as she, Oculos had been the only thing connecting Kassandra to the outside of her tower. She remembered when her uncle, looming over her with his terrible face and his terrible power, forced her to stare down into the wide moon-eyes of his heavily pregnant bitch, her stomach a massive weight on her long spine, lips pulled back against the hard length of her mouth as she panted her unease and licked at the air. Both dog and mare, trembling, uncomfortable with the space and proximity. Syroc had forced her head closer to those sharp teeth and demanded a telling, a vision, a future.
Oculos had been that future and the truth of it had been for Kassandra only to know. And ever since he had been all things for her-- an informant, a story-teller, a protector, a reminder that she had a life to live.
The stranger nodded to the hound who did not remove himself from his place as a physical barrier between the two; he did, however, let his hackles fall, and his ears relaxed and raised to an interested, listening perk.
There was that word again-- always. Its presence made Kassandra swallow audibly. It seemed such a foreboding thing, but in the mouth of this stranger it was… lighter, more reverent. And it invited thought, for just like the concept of always, the stars were a constant. They were ever-present, even in the swirls of her nightmarish visions, even when she woke from tossed and troubled sleep to the bright blare of day, the stars were there. “Yes, I suppose it is. No matter how… difficult it is to see.”
The stallion cleared his throat and the sound of it made Kas jump slightly. In her head, Oculos chuckled; the laughter died away with the stranger’s question. Where was she from? She was from nowhere, any longer; she was from a black, sulfuric hole in the ground where the upended and skeletal remains of palace and people lay half-buried in hardened ash and soot. Like some portal to the hells. Like a demon. “I am… not from here,” she allowed, trying to keep her voice from wavering. “I came here much by happenstance. Then, I almost died in the desert. Got trapped on a magical island. And I suppose I’ve not left.” It was not so much an answer as a diversion, but her head began to hurt with the scent of smoke and the distant sound of explosions, so it would have to do.
