Everything has changed.
She can feel it in the air, in the electric buzz of her skin and the whisper of words in her head. This world is different from the one she came from, the one where her father cast her out on her own and she struggled to survive in the wilds without guidance or kindness to help nurture the wounds he’d given her. This place… It is frightening, yet comforting in a way that she can’t quite grasp, like water trickling through clasped fingers.
Despite her distrust of them, the few other souls she’d encountered here have done nothing to harm her - in fact, quite the contrary, some of them have sought to help her, and though it felt strange to be thrust into a new place with strange ways, it hadn’t been as difficult as it might have been had she met anyone like her father. Oh, but don’t get too comfortable, sweet girl. You’ve hardly met anyone at all, there are still monsters lurking. And you shouldn’t trust that Bob fellow, I told you.
”Shut up, you nuisance,” she snaps under her breath as the parasite in her mind gives its unsolicited opinion, always weighing in on her thoughts as if it had the right to. With a heavy sigh she picks her head up from the grass she’d been nibbling while mulling over these thoughts, chewing the last bit and swallowing it down before moving on, her footsteps slow and heavy. A gentle wind smelling of rain and early spring ruffles her mane, sending tendrils of hair tugging about her ears and around her cheeks; it also brings with it another scent, one decidedly more equine.
She stills, her head lifting and ears pricking as she listens, turning her nose to the wind and the direction of the scent. Leave it be, Luthien. You’ve gotten us into enough trouble already…
With a petulant grunt, she ignores the whispers and turns toward the scent, curiosity and doubt waging a war inside of her. With little searching, she spots the stallion in the distant and for a brief moment, she wonders how she hadn’t seen him before. Frowning, she scolds herself just as the parasite does the same, reminding her that this place was making her weak and idle. How had she managed to survive for years on her own, yet a little kindness has her dropping every guard she’d ever learned to keep in place?
Huffing, she stomps towards the stallion, her expression wary as she draws near. He seems troubled, or perhaps she’s fabricating that in her mind to make him seem less frightening. Who knows, who cares?
”Are you alright,” she asks, choosing to believe that he is, in fact, troubled. Otherwise, she would have to admit that she’d gone more off the rocker than she’d previously thought.
Well, she had, but that’s besides the point.