n e v e r w h e r e

[Neverwhere]

It is important to note that she is glad the first to approach her isn’t green. You just can’t trust children to keep their mouths shut when they should. Of course, she would never call herself a child, but, well… We all know ourselves, don’t we? Still, it wasn’t exactly what one might call normal, to appear suddenly from the cold air like a swarm of biting flies manifesting horse-shape. Yet, it was also so exceedingly normal. Was she meant to shy away in fright, or look on in wonder? Attack or murmur welcome? The expectation that there is expectation holds her feet firm in place, defiant against absolutely nothing.

The silence stretches then, long and thick, like the summer sun bearing down on wetland flowers, crushed underfoot, hooves sinking and sucking into the mud. Silence. The mud will be knee deep, and you will be stuck. Silence. Soon enough, you will be silent, too. Or perhaps not. It might not be soon enough at all.

“Yes. Neverwhere.”

And Neverwhere either ignores or does not notice the lack of affability in her own tone or The Stranger’s, but briefly considers that they must look odd, even in a world of oddity, standing faces-to-face, no conversation between them but the soft whisper of wind picking its icy fingers through their manes. Will they force each other into dull conversations and long, murky pauses? She deigns to break their staring contest first, if only because it makes her eyes hurt, and lets them rest against the darkness of a nearby pine grove without a clear memory of the piercing blue eyes others might find intimidating or fascinating. Her own vision is too blurry, too bleary, like glass drifting through the ocean. The burning recedes, the redness of her sclera remains. It, too, will fade some, come twilight.  

“I can, of course, take no credit for it.”

A silly thing to be complimented on, a name. Was it a compliment? No matter. She did not steal it, or create it, or earn it in any way. It is, essentially, nonsense left to her by parents whose motives were, at best, unclear, and now, beyond discovering. Although her shortened ears never left The Stranger’s direction, pale eyes now turn their watery gaze back to meet hers. The roan’s white-flecked coat does nothing to dispel thoughts of the spontaneity of her arrival.

“So tell me, are you, in fact, made entirely of flies? And if so, how is it you keep them flying in winter?”

Tactless.