appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.

Rezza rarely wanders so far from her Queen, but after making sure the Queen was alright, and then her daughter, and dealing with the duties that accompany her title, Rezza could not resist. She needed to see her for herself what had happened in that strange quake. She is no stranger to the earth shaking, for she has lived her life in the midst of war. But there has been no sign of their enemies right now, but rather, a new taste in the water, a different scent. Something had changed.

Rezza follows the unusual scent in the water, navigating the ocean deep until the moonlight breaks through. It is not much light, but still, it is more than Rezza is used to. Her life has been spent in these waters and she knows them well, and so it is not hard to sense the thing that is different. She just doesn't quite know where it might lead her to, what she might find. The water warms as she climbs to the surface, and she finds she is almost afraid to break through. It has been so long since she's even left the sea that she wonders if her legs will remember what to do once they reach land, if she will choke on the taste of dry air.

Her head breaks through the surface and she does choke, though not on the air. No, she chokes because she knows this place and she is not sure she wants to be here, and yet the invisible hands of the dead tug at her. Her feet find the sand and she moves out of the water, her feet taking her places she does not entirely want to be. And yet...how was this here? Where exactly was here? The questions tug at her, though she does not expect to find anyone else at this hour of the night. She'd been too busy before to come earlier, but she could always wait in the sea until morning.

Her eyes spot someone in the distance though, a faint glimmer visible around the moving figure, not unlike Rezza herself. Another Baltian, perhaps? The jellyfish mare, with tentacles still in her mane and tail, weaves her way through the dead. Her cat-like eyes dart back and forth, looking for the place where her brother died. Would she even know it anymore? As she comes closer to the other figure, it becomes clear this other mare is no Baltian, nor is she the enemy of their war.

"Hello," Rezza calls, for she has some amount of manners after more than a century in the life of a diplomat. Someone needed to balance out their Queen and Helice, after all. "I'm Rezza, of Baltia. May I ask...where are you from?" There's something ancient in her voice, and yet for all her years she cannot answer such a simple question. Where exactly was she now? The ruins yes. She knows these ruins. But they were not where they once were...

appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.

There are two, and then there are three, as they are quickly joined by another. He is younger, still growing into himself, and she wonders what age he actually is. There are many who do not live nearly so long as those in Baltia, and she wonders if this group is like that. Do they live centuries without the aid of magic, as Baltians do? Or was this boy truly young, a few years at most? She cannot say, but of course, she doesn't even know where she is. Well, not entirely.

She knows the ground on which her feet stand, but it has never been here before. How did it get here? Where was here? Those were the questions she needed to answer, though whether or not these horses could tell her, she hadn’t a clue. First though, she must be pleasant, a proper diplomat, someone they would feel comfortable talking to. Though she doesn’t need her mind reading to see that the mare she had approached is not particularly happy, which would likely make this conversation all the more interesting.

”Golden trees?” she asks, hardly needing to feign confusion at this moment. She has no idea that this mare’s home had sunk into the sea, after all. ”Not in Baltia. Our home is untouched besides an earthquake. Did something happen to your home?” She could certainly look in the sea for golden trees, though she would need some direction on where to look. Baltia was hardly the whole sea, after all.

Her attention turns to the boy, Bolder, and she gives him a pleasant smile, about to answer when yet another joins them. Both the colt and the mare, who gave no name, ask about this place. ”I know it,” she says, and there is something sad in her voice as she says the words. Despite being tempted, she does not check the ground to see if the land is still stained red. ”As for how I got here, I swam,” and now there is a bit more of a playful grin on her face at the joke. “But I do not know where here is, or how my home suddenly became connected to it. Perhaps you can tell me about where we are, and in exchange, I can tell you about these ruins and Baltia?”

appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.

The colt is the most talkative of the bunch and so her focus falls on him. She is not here for social hour and in this moment, she doubts anyone else is either. Certainly they cannot be offended by this fact. Well, they can, but she doesn’t actually care if they are because it would be ridiculous. The world has just been flipped upside down and so now is not the time for making friends.

With her focus largely on Bolder, she finds that she does not miss his looks which linger too long on both mares. Why she cannot tell, for sadly his thoughts give her very little except that he is familiar with Eliana and that…he seems to be concerned that Lillibet is familiar with him. Rezza could tell him that Lillibet’s thoughts are far from Bolder, but she doesn’t, because her skill is far more useful when no one knows that she has it.

Bolder is the one to answer, mentioning a Dark God to which she cocks her head slightly. What he doesn’t mention is his own involvement, which suddenly makes him far more interesting to Rezza, though she doesn’t show it. ”Dark God?” she asks, the question apparent enough. The rest of the story doesn’t come from Bolder, though by now she can piece it together even without her mind reading. Her eyes glance to Lillibet who had mentioned golden trees falling into the sea, making it clear that the story has basically told itself. ”And then some of your land fell into the sea?” she asks, her voice soft and empathetic. Her home may have moved, but at least it was intact.

”What they are Ruins of is the wrong question,” she says to Bolder, her strange (to them, she imagines) eyes turning back to him. “The real question is what they are ruins from. We call it the Great War for it has plagued Baltia for centuries upon centuries. Far longer than I have been alive, so I do not even know its beginning. An enemy we have never managed to escape and a war without end. Though perhaps with us now here, there will be peace.” After all, she has seen no sign of their enemies. Surely if they were plunged into this world as well they would have shown themselves already. She is almost afraid to hope that such a thing might be possible.