She is bored.

Harmonia had left her here, with her promise to serve the King for two years, and Kellyn has seen her only in passing, since. And as far as anyone else goes, that’d be nada. She smells them occasionally, hears their voices and their hooves carried to her on the strange wind through the canyons, but she has been very much alone. It is a ghost land, this Pangea, and she is not nearly as fond of ghost-lands as she is of some ghosts.

And there aren’t even that many ghosts here. It had been a new slate when the fae created it, and her grandfather the god-mage had only stayed long enough to ruin it, not to kill anyone. Or, no, it was rarely Carnage himself who committed mass murder and genocide. That, as Kellyn was intimately familiar, was his followers. Followers like Kellyn’s mother, who had led a Kingdom into attempted genocide of all non-mythicals. Followers like Kellyn’s mother, who are a good part of the reason that the fae had gotten so angry in the first place.

Kellyn is not her mother, and she’s not sure she has the stomach for mass murder, but she actively dislikes the fae and their meddling ways, and she knows as well that she is not as pure of heart as her father’s side of the family. Despite being raised by Cagney and Brennen, a part of her wonders what it would be like to be like Elite. To go after what you wanted, with no concept of consequences or the hurt you cause. A part of her remembers her mother, lying catatonic for many years after her defeat and then never being quite a whole person, and thinks it is not worth it. But a part of her wonders if she could do better.

But, for now, she’d settle for simply doing. Something. And so she goes in active search of this man she has sworn to serve, to see what might be done.

So far she has had little use for her powers since Harmonia restored them; a tug at the web of time around her here and there simply to reassure herself that she can, a couple of ghosts that lurk around, but more than an actual need to use her powers is the overwhelming feeling of relief of having them. But still it is her first instinct when he appears in the corner of her vision to snatch at those threads of time, to force time itself to slow while she tenses, prepared to skitter away from the threat, ears pinned to her head.

But even in slow motion it is clear that he does not lunge at her, does not threaten beyond his appearance, and Kellyn lets time slide back into its rightful path before he speaks, inhaling slowly and allowing herself to unfreeze, though the rigidness does not entirely leave her form. She knows nothing about the residents of this place besides Harmonia, but she knows enough. From the magician’s words, from the scents that linger in the air; it is enough to make it clear that monsters dwell here. The little mare sweeps a long look over the stranger, before lifting green eyes to his red. True red, and she clamps down on the urge to shiver.

A tiny voice in the back of her head whispers, what have you gotten yourself into?, but Kellyn ignores it, and counts herself grateful that her self-appointed spirit guide ancestors haven’t yet found her here. She is quite sure that this isn’t what either of them imagined when she promised to not be like her mother.

Before she can decide if it’s worth answering him, another joins them. The strawberry girl gives him just as long of a look, lingering for a moment on his impressive horns, his single wing, his dark gaze. Thankfully not red, but certainly not friendly. “Someone,” she says at last, eyeing both stallions. “My name is Kellyn. Harmonia restored my powers, and I swore fealty to the King for two years in return. I’m looking for him.” Despite her circumstances, a quite small mare looking at two stallions who aren’t doing anything to make her feel comfortable, Kellyn’s words are calm and almost sweet in their tone, a smile slipping onto her face as if this is an everyday conversation.

Without her powers, Kellyn had been alone and afraid. With them, she is afraid of very little.