10-09-2019, 10:26 AM
(This post was last modified: 10-26-2019, 04:15 PM by Neverwhere.)
Nerine was certainly a beautiful land, in its own way. It wasn't made of silver lakes or verdant greenery, it wasn't made of trees that grew impossibly high, or fields of flowers that never ended, it was stark and raw, a place where rock met salt-water in dramatic fashion. Where the grass grew golden and salty, and the few trees were bent and warped from the wild breezes and storms that blow in from the ocean. In a way, one might say that Neverwhere suited this land more than other places that she might have landed, her face ruined like the cliff faces that overlooked the undulating, crashing waves. She, too, is pitted and pocked and had occasionally garnered stares.
Of course, until now, she had not noticed the stares, though only a fool would assume they did not come.
And still, she is not the most fantastically damaged of horses in this place, it is just that her scars are difficult to avoid, and it's so easy for one's gaze to drift from her eyes to the red and chapped skin just below them. She misses nothing, here, anything that she can see has her rapt attention, and she has become a great Watcher of Things, as if she can see enough in a few short months to make up for the years of steadily growing blindness, or enough to carry her through excursions outside of Nerine where a single steps across the border instantly causes the magic gift of her vision to blink out.
It had been upsetting, at first, very upsetting, and she had been lucky that that first realization was followed immediately by the unexpected arrival of a friend. Now, though, she is not caught unawares, and a moment's patience renews the formers strengths of her other senses, so she navigates as well as she ever did. However, the ability to see brings her back to Nerine, more than Heartfire's assurance that she is always welcome here, and so, the wanderer has suddenly found herself with a home, a place that she inevitably returns to, no matter where in Beqanna her feet take her.
It's a curious thing, to have a home, she thinks.
Which, perhaps, is a curious thing to think.
She does not dwell on it. The late season sun arcs high, shadows dark and sharp-edged like knives, but Neverwhere barely blinks, and certainly does not squint. For some, this is the worst part of the day, the hottest, the brightest, but she finds she prefers it, and strides across the plateau confidently. Never mind that the magic that lets her see does nothing to cure the trouble of her face, and the sunburnt skin is peeling from her nostrils, no, the scarring reflects a deep, stubborn, self-neglect and being able to see has certainly not changed that about the dappled mare.
Of course, until now, she had not noticed the stares, though only a fool would assume they did not come.
And still, she is not the most fantastically damaged of horses in this place, it is just that her scars are difficult to avoid, and it's so easy for one's gaze to drift from her eyes to the red and chapped skin just below them. She misses nothing, here, anything that she can see has her rapt attention, and she has become a great Watcher of Things, as if she can see enough in a few short months to make up for the years of steadily growing blindness, or enough to carry her through excursions outside of Nerine where a single steps across the border instantly causes the magic gift of her vision to blink out.
It had been upsetting, at first, very upsetting, and she had been lucky that that first realization was followed immediately by the unexpected arrival of a friend. Now, though, she is not caught unawares, and a moment's patience renews the formers strengths of her other senses, so she navigates as well as she ever did. However, the ability to see brings her back to Nerine, more than Heartfire's assurance that she is always welcome here, and so, the wanderer has suddenly found herself with a home, a place that she inevitably returns to, no matter where in Beqanna her feet take her.
It's a curious thing, to have a home, she thinks.
Which, perhaps, is a curious thing to think.
She does not dwell on it. The late season sun arcs high, shadows dark and sharp-edged like knives, but Neverwhere barely blinks, and certainly does not squint. For some, this is the worst part of the day, the hottest, the brightest, but she finds she prefers it, and strides across the plateau confidently. Never mind that the magic that lets her see does nothing to cure the trouble of her face, and the sunburnt skin is peeling from her nostrils, no, the scarring reflects a deep, stubborn, self-neglect and being able to see has certainly not changed that about the dappled mare.
