The Valley

She stands near her new acquaintance and listens to Vivette talk to Charger. And then, a small amount of chaos seems to ensue as they are joined by others. The young mare watches them, no recognition in her dark eyes at first – these people are indeed refugees but they are not her people. Of course, she doesn’t expect to see many of her people – the ‘Fall’s most dedicated members will be staying behind to fight for their future, fighters or no. Even some of the pregnant (her aunt, in particular, comes to mind) have stayed behind, because a future under the Evil rule is worse than dying and having no future at all. Nekana wishes that she, too, had insisted on staying behind, but she has of yet no formal training. Just the bits and pieces she’s picked up as a filly, stories and strategies laid out to her by her father, and the voice of a two-time general in her head. She’d be more of a handicap than an asset. Finally, a face she recognizes appears. Relief spreads through her as first Dillan, then Bessie appear and join the group.

Her strange eyes linger briefly on Lyria, for she is again reminded that she has no friends her own age and that she had been intending to meet the other girl before all of this shattered their relatively peaceful lives, and then go to Dillan, listening intently. Her Queen (for she does not as yet recognize the new Kingdom as such, for they never truly finished forming it before they were attacked) questions the lone stallion among them and the girl wishes she had thought of the questions that Dillan asks before, when she spoke to him; she is glad that the mare has arrived to organize them. Bessie approaches to speak to Dillan and after giving them a moment, Nekana moves closer to the gray lady as well, anger and sadness warring together in her gaze. She lifts those eyes to Dillan’s, trying to keep the frustration from her voice. “I want to do something useful. I don’t want to hide here. What can I do?”

Her own desire to do something useful is augmented by the tension in the back of her conscious, for the voice had recognized Texas through her granddaughter’s eyes back in the Forbidden Waterfall, and she was exuding a dark anger that Nekana could tell wasn’t really her own emotion. She’s hoping if Dillan gives her something useful to do, she’ll be better able to ignore the sudden compulsion to seek out the strange stallion she hadn’t recognized that seems to be making her voice so very upset.