What has happened since she last stepped out of hiding? Eight's scent is less prominent and she wonders if he still reigns. There are different smells flooding her and swimming through her mind. Everything is so different and yet looks the same. She has heard rumors of a wall, but she never left and so she finds herself barricaded in, confused and bewildered.
Her slit pupils drink in her surroundings and take note of the wall spurting from the earth. Uncertain of her fate Shiya simply looks ahead and contemplates her place in the Valley. She is no one, nothing. Her heart has lied with Eight for so long (or so he has led her to believe) but she knows that it cannot be mutual. He is so powerful and so desirable and what is she in return? Shiya can offer him nothing. Some days she wonders if she can even provide a child (she is unaware that she has four children already). Is she even fertile, or is she entirely a disgrace? Is she a curse cast out to simply poison Beqanna?
Shiya's brows furrow and her lips stretch into a frown. "A disgrace," she murmurs as she recollects her lonely nights filled with staring at the stars.
The dismal sense of loneliness begins to suppress when she hears the cracking of a twig followed by a voice. Her head snaps into the direction from where the disruption came. A stallion is looming nearer and he's seemingly proud and gallant until he stumbles over a fallen log. "Oh dear," she catches herself saying aloud as she takes a few steps toward him. "Are you---" she's cut off by his question in which she chuckles to. "No, I've been here, but I've been tucked away. I never left," she looks distantly toward a cavern she had been surviving in. There was a serpent in there who slithered across her scales and slept on her. "Are you okay?" She asks him when she withdraws from her reminiscent trance before noticing the approaching mare.
"Oh, hello," a jagged smile touches her lips. It hides that she ever frowned before they arrived. It hides the confusion that races through her when Gallows also answers Fennicks question. Shiya shrugs it away; maybe Eight mentioned her to other Valley members, but then why is her mind feeling so vulnerable and open? The girl shrinks away from the sensation rushing through her veins. The smile wavers and her reptilian eyes reveal her concern. "How do you know me?" Her question is barely more than a whisper when she looks between Fennick and Gallows. She looks more of a lost child than an adult in this moment.
Be strong, she tells herself, but the self-reassurance is futile as her shaken voice sputters out. "I'm, uh, just looking around I, uh, guess? I'm not sure." She swallows the lump in her throat "Is Eight still around?" He is always around. He will protect her and assure her that all is well.
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