Lilliana’s question is a fair one to Neverwhere’s comment, and the bald-faced mare tips her head slightly to take in the flat line of the other mare’s mouth, the threatened frown.

“Monsters as we mean them, here, now, no. They are far and few between where I come from, where there is only the cruelty of Nature when there’s no magic to heal you.” Like the sun scars on her face and the tips of her ears that blackened and died before she was even a year old. She shakes her head, solemnly, she doesn’t need to have met monsters, to have seen them, to know that liars lie. Though her own nomadic people have no magic and their customs are largely those of base, ignorant, equines, she has found herself living the suspicious life of the solitary wanderer. These are habits one does not put down easily. Pessimistic and occasionally fatalistic, Neverwhere always expects to have things go awry, but there is a strange sense of control in choosing to make those decisions that the dappled mare relishes.

Lilli’s muffled comment does not go unheard, the frost-bitten ears used to picking up whispers in the shadows, but she offers no further thoughts on the matter, only nodding, recognizing the hard edge presenting beneath the layers of silk. A good sign, Neverwhere approves of hard edges.

Like Lilli in the deepening darkness, remembering her monsters – which, Neverwhere is certain, are real ones that still grasp at her heart with iron grips – the scarred mare travels while lost in thought, she does not even notice that she is not seeing, one ear hard forward, the other back. She considers how the tone of their conversation has changed. It is almost funny, one mare softens and the other hardens, each pulling careful strings to see which ones do what, which ones play the chords they want to hear, manipulating even as they follow one-another. Neverwhere has no difficulty following the chestnut’s pace, trailing her sound, hoofsteps thudding on the path, crossing stone and dirt and grass. Even before Lilli warns her of the root, she can hear the other mare react, drawing to the side, and begins to follow suit, slightly exaggerating her steps to avoid the root while answering the other mare's query.

“It was also bright,” she says, “and windy.”

And then she pauses, long enough to make it seem as if that is all she will say on the matter. But, at last, she relents.

“High desert. It’s not the way some think, all sand and sun and cactus, although there were those things, too. We had rain and snow and it got so cold sometimes. Nobody ever thinks it gets very cold in the desert, but it does, cold enough to burn your ears off.”

Her own ears flutter, perfect curled rounds, soft fur hiding the seam of scar tissue where her body had walled itself off from the dead flesh.

"I heard there used to be a desert around here, I might have liked to have seen it before magic tore the place apart."