There’s a craggy, shale-slick cliff that exists atop Pangea’s highest point above the ocean. During cold spring showers, pebble after pebble tumbles down the hundreds foot drop into the churning water. The usually dull gray stone is nearly black with wet, its shiny slick glimmering with the same kind of danger a knife does. Here above the depthless sea and below the unforgiving sky, Margot can drown out the madness within. Here the wind cuts at her porcelain, each gust more threatening than the last. The fragile woman peers over the edge, releases a piercing Harpy’s cry—then leaves unceremoniously.

The plain’s of Pangea host only a rare manner of life (that rare life lately being an occasional cricket or a hissing rattlesnake). Those looking for some infantile punishment, the wayward, the bewitched and bemused, the cretins and soulless titans—Margot has seen this land bear every type of odd one can dream of. But even the demigods of dark gods find silence within their dynasties and Margot—Margot knew only to prepare for if that day may come.

And come it did, the silence. Stillness blanketed the people’s once riotous land and what followed . . . Margot would not call it peace but it was something akin to it—something that has burrowed beneath her skin and stung her everyday since. You see, to understand the porcelain, clay-spattered woman trekking back to the shadowed canyons she prefers; one must understand the nature of a land like Pangea. How a land can ask so much of an individual that it entirely consumes them. How a land can spit it’s consumption back into the world entirely changed.

Margot has many strange stories to tell, ones of love lost and gained, of betrayal, of lust and murder; but now she only wishes to tell one, to control every narrative her tendrils of sick magic might discover. There’s a clarity to the cold, cruel rain that plinks off of her body. A rare smile curls her lips, a gleam lights the pale colors of her eyes, and a prick perks up her typically turned ears.

The sun dares to peek out between thick, gray clouds as Margot gently lays in a creek bed. She rolls onto her back, allowing the clear water to turn brown as it tugs at all of her mane’s dirty tangles. When she rolls back over, a grand, winning smile is plastered across her face.

Reticence is always a quality Margot strives for, though she may not always succeed in such mystery. It is not what she feels now—neither shrewd nor secretive—as the sun continues to reveal more and more of itself. Like the blistering star above, parts of Margot she has not addressed in years begin to rear their heads (and bare their teeth and tear into her flesh).

She doesn’t feel reticent as her pale eyes sweep over the demon interrupting her bath.

There is no fear or shadow, no secret behind her bright smile.

“You find me peculiar?” she questions, blinking thrice before tilting her head in thought. “No more peculiar than every other withering creature that calls this place home? I don’t think I could bear to be considered like all the rest.” There’s no real plea in her last statement, no desperation despite the words themselves sounding quite insecure. Margot’s truth is simply different from the world, or so she believes.

Through it all, Margot remains curled within the steady stream of the water, watching. Her smile never fades even as all kinds of thoughts and possibilities cross her mind, even as she drifts pale pink tendrils of magic only she can see toward Severe.

“I would call you peculiar, but you aren’t to me.” The little mare drops her grin just a touch before dipping her head in a more formal greeting, “My name is Margot.”

Margot once found it annoying that every stranger’s greeting accompanied porcelain-fueled curiosity. She didn’t understand then how intrinsic people’s most unique qualities become. How over months and years that which makes you special is so ingrained in you, as simple as breathing.

Now, she meets that fascination with a smile, pale gaze hinting at the secrets of her fragility.

“You’re not missing much,” Margot replies coyly, then scrapes her knee against the ground in such a way that it creates a grating noise. “See?” she asks as she rises to stand, “So inconspicuous.” 

A few slight scratches begin to ooze blood down the ivory of Margot’s leg. She sighs in an almost chiding way, then rolls her eyes.

“We all bleed the same, I suppose.”

Margot slowly drifts her gaze over Severe before answering the woman’s question.

“Years now, I think. It’s hard to keep track amongst all the . . . monotony.” She pauses, appraising the demon’s slick face. “I’m a terrible ruler for not knowing how long you’ve been here, Severe. Care to enlighten me?”

Margot is not often keen to prove true the words that leave her tongue—seldom does she mean what she says. There is no truth in spoken word, she has found herself believing over the years. There is only truth in action, observation, and nature.

Lies are so easily spoken, fragile as they may be. Margot has never minded when they shatter, never bothered to inspect all the little pieces in an attempt to stabilize her words.

When so little is of worth to her, she has so little to lose.

Margot huffs out a performative, self-deprecating laugh. She bats her pale lashes at the demon and dares a smile that bares just a bit of her true nature. Somewhere between deranged and brutal, the look passes quickly save for a lingering madness in her eyes. She lazily turns her head to watch a faint breeze send dust and burnt weeds across the clay earth. There is perhaps an awkward pause between Severe's last word and Margot's response. She is lost somewhere, so clearly gone she might simply vanish from existence.

But eventually she turns, she smiles, she recalls where her trailing thoughts started.

"I will double down on being a terrible leader. You are not so fortuitous as to meet me. I am merely a guardian."

Margot is dazed, still weaving through the fog of all the other's emotions she must remember. Her control of her magic slips, allowing knife-like tendrils of pink to grasp desperately at Severe. Unaware, she doesn't pull the clawing magic away, despite its persistence potentially leading to discovery.