Private I will shield you from the darkness when the walls around us quake;

you said you'd wait forever, but I blinked and the world was gone

Water rushed along rocks, along the decrepit banks and mossy overgrowth where vines and reeds blended together, and the trees drank deep with might roots tearing through soil and sp-read mad across the land itself. Green plants had begun to wither and frost touched the edges of their leaves… curling them in upon themselves at times. Petals and flowers had long gone and even the humming on insects had faded with the sweeping burst of autumnal winds. There were no moon or stars, no great shadows and darkness… the canopy (though orange and brown) blocked them out and even dimmed the sunlight as it began to pour across the morning horizon.

Wolves howled, deer bedded in hidden places, and all life began to shift with time; but one constant was the dull sound of hooves amidst the crackling and fallen detritus… the thudding as someone walked atop the frozen ground and seemed to guide themselves through the worn trails and tall grasses and briars. As such it was not odd to see the splash within the shadows, the burst of movement as a singular individual walked outward into one of the many clearings within the unending labyrinth of trees. Birdsongs and the mimicry of sparrows came from her lips, though it was sloppy at first… and it took minutes for her to tune the whistles and sounds.

Briella paused the whistling though, listening as the echo kept through the trees and eventually disappeared.

Change had swept her undoubtedly, the once fair-haired and earthy colored girl had… after all, grown into something else. Matte black and deeply colored the baroque body was splashed with milky gray and white patterns and alternating highlights of blue that went from an icy near-silver to a deep glacial sapphire… her hooves and eyes seemed to reflect this as well: refracting light as if they were gemstones and colored in an impossible way. Still? Her mane and tail, long and curly, seemed to radiate a sweeping steam: the icicle strands of frozen water thin and imitations of hair.

She shone, and shimmered, looked akin to a treasure that belonged in a draconic hoard.

Such it was that she bounced, girlish glee and childlike wonder: her ears twitching as she stopped dead in her tracks near the rushing River and the banks- her gaze falling flat on the odd shape of another. Drawing herself up, she took on a sort of poised look, postured and well mannered… and with a mellifluous and unforgettable voice (her accent singularly unique) she tried to speak.

“Dovev?” she blinked, half expecting the bone-ridden figure of her father to emerge; but instead she finds herself staring at someone else… no change in her tone, only a slight draw of brief. “Oh! I’m sorry, Bane… that was your name. Apologies, I thought, ah. Nevermind.”

BRIELLA