She does not remember why she had chosen Pangea. Maybe her mother had mentioned it in passing, or maybe she had just stumbled across it and saw no reason to leave. Pangea had not been much to look at, and even she could see that, as clueless to the ways of this world though she was. The rest of Beqanna seemed so bright, with a myriad of colors and sounds. Pangea was barren and desolate, like some diseased thing that couldn’t seem to actually die. It didn’t seem to belong, like the rest of the lands.

And perhaps that is why she stayed; because she did not really belong, either.
A lost star that was still trapped earth-bound, and near as she could tell, the stars were still too far away no matter which land she chose to live in.

She watched with the same indifferent stare as always when Pangea first went up in flames, and then swallowed the magic mare as the earth shook. If anything, the event at least sparked some sort of emotion in her; curiosity, mostly, at the endless mysteries and powers this land seemed to hold. If capable of such a thing she would have been almost irritated by it – to once again witness such power, but she herself having been left rendered almost entirely weak after arriving here.

It makes her wonder, though, what kind of secrets the other lands hold. If they too have fires that swallow lands and spring up others in their wake, if the earth could simply open up at any given moment. It makes her wonder, too, what would have happened had she died; if she would have gone to the afterlife, or been returned to the sky as a star. It’s a thought that had not crossed her mind until she was faced with the possibility of dying, and she tries to not think too hard about why she let the opportunity pass.

It is dusk when she arrives at Loess, and much like Pangea, there is no reason why she chooses here. She walks across the rocky hills, the glow of her skin becoming more pronounced as the sky continued to dim, but she does not call out to anyone. She does not think her presence will go unnoticed.

It is not long before someone arrives to greet her, which was expected. She had learned that the residents of this land were quick to flock to newcomers; sometimes out of friendliness, though often with suspicion. The idea of finding your own kind a threat had confused her at first, until she stayed in Pangea long enough to see the way this place worked.

It made sense, after that.
Everywhere she looked there seemed to be chaos, and if there dared to be a moment’s lull, you could be sure that someone would breathe fire into the calm.

She didn’t mind it, but she didn’t understand it either. She did not dislike anyone here enough to attack them, just as she did not like anyone enough to defend them.
Still, the idea of feeling something so strongly still appealed to her, and she still hoped that perhaps one day she will truly know what it meant to be alive.

She recognizes the one that has approached her, though the acknowledgement just hardly flickers across her face. It shows mostly in her eyes, something bright that flashes from the depths of the purple-black of them. “Mesec,” she recalls his name, and remembers their last meeting. He had caught her in the middle of rearranging the starlight into constellations, and that memory alone is what encourages a wisp of a smile on her stark white lips. “I haven’t had the chance to do that here, no.” Her eyes lift upwards, to where the sky had now darkened enough that the brightest of stars were able to shine through. There is the same feeling beneath her skin, the same feeling of tugging and longing, and she turns her gaze back to him. “I didn’t know you lived here.”

She has noticed that they like to move, too. That most of them don’t seem content to be in one place for long, which was not something she was accustomed to. As a star, she did not move. The stars stayed and the world moved around them, and they lived and died in the same place. To not be anchored had been the hardest thing to grow accustomed to after she became earth-bound, and she wonders if that is why she can never shake the feeling of restlessness. The two parts of herself seemed to be constantly at odds with each other, the need to move and the need to stay still, the craving for sunlight and the longing for the dark.

It would be overwhelming if she felt the emotion of it all, but instead there is nothing.
Just the same hollowness as always.

She likes Mesec, though, as much as she is capable of liking anyone. He always expressed interest in her affinity to the stars, and since that was the only thing she really knew how to carry on a conversation about, it allowed her to indulge in a sense of normalcy.

“I haven't decided yet,” she comments idly, looking up at the advancing darkness. She pulls a single tendril of starlight towards them, spins it into the shape of a flower, like the kinds she has seen in the meadow, and nestles it into the dark strands of his mane with a faint smile. “If I can find a reason to stay, then I might.” She does not understand the weight of those words – does not realize how close her life is to changing in a way that she could never comprehend, that would tie her to Loess forever, if only in the sense that it would be the setting for significant memories.

“You must like it, though, if you’ve stayed.”

She isn't sure what Mesec thinks of her, but he seems content with the star-flower in his hair, and that is enough to keep the wisp of a smile on her pale lips. There had been a time when she was younger that she had longed for moments like this, when she could imagine that she almost fit in with the rest of them. Conversation with him was easy in a way that it was not always for her, and it allowed her to pretend she was not so entirely different.

“I’ve only ever lived in Pangea,” she offers, though she does not make a comparison of it against Loess. To her there wasn't much difference between the lands of Beqanna besides the obvious contrasts of landscape and climate. None of them ever felt like home, but she did not hold it against them.

Home was an impossible thing for her; something she did not ever expect to find.

Her eyes follow his back to the stars above, and though the laugh she emits is short it has a light, silvery sound to it, as though it too was spun of starlight. “Unobstructed view of the stars is the only thing I look for in a place, so I suppose I don't have a reason not to stay.”