It is a strange thing, she must admit to even herself, to feel two parts of one's self; when she left Taviora, she felt a part of her stay behind. The part of her that sought to dance and sing and to squirm with the love of play stayed safely in the shadows and knots of the great trees; with her came the other, the part of her that smiled the same way as her father and squirmed across the ground like some carrion worm. It grated on her, scratched the back of her mind and twisted her gut - strange, uncomfortable, to be in so many pieces. Sometimes, she wanted nothing more than to crawl back into the roots and feel the presence of that strange boy but now...now that part of her felt a long way from her. She was safe, that piece, but this one? She was not so sure. She had been drawn to follow the trail of another, bloodied and subtle, a strawberry kiss on the snow. How could she not? It reminded her of herself. She wondered if she had found another piece of herself.

Imagine, then, her surprise when she had not; instead, she found a shadow and the woman from the crags who had not wished to crawl into the darkness with her. Eto's approach had been quiet and now she paused on the sidelines of their lives; she was the largest but not, her body twisted down as the polar opposite of their need for dominance. Her tail hung by her hocks, her ears back and eyes wide and wild as they flashed between the trio; she sunk low as she crawled forward. There were few shadows for her to disappear into here but...they were up to something. They were like the stranger who had tried to bite her! Tricksters and troublemakers. It had happened so fast that her only response was to become the shadow that had been lacking.

She had moved behind the stranger then, the youngest boy who had suddenly screamed and attacked. Her mouth had fallen into a soft 'o' of awe as he lunged forward and she backed up slightly as he charged in; her tail thumped behind her as her heart thumped in her chest. She had never seen such darkness manifest itself. The boy who bit was nothing. The shadows pooled beneath these strangers and she watched in awe, unafraid where she should have been.