She was just returning home from a quiet ride, when the Darkness came.

At first, all was confusion; her horse was more upset than she was, and took a considerable time to settle nervously on not, in fact, throwing her off. The mare would not move at first, then would nose forwards only cautiously, not even at a walk.

A new thing had happened, and although it hung heavily in the air, she could hear what her mother would say: "Do come in, dear, and let's stay calm, and wait it out. A little darkness won't keep us from practicing your scales, after all! We should sing away the gloom and wait for it to pass."

There was nothing, at that moment, that seemed less appealing than attempting to sing away the gloom, and inevitably be judged for not doing it well enough.

She considered going on into the city, but two things kept her from that path: for one, everyone would simply send her back to her parents; for two, the darkness seemed somehow more oppressive in that direction, the dreadful feeling that everything had not, in fact, changed for the better.

Well, there were other cities. The darkness was impenetrable, but the roads existed.

Her mount clearly did not want to go anywhere, so she took herself down from the saddle and started to lead her instead; this way she could at least feel the ground as to where she was going, and as much as the mare panicked occasionally and tugged, she could dodge being trampled more easily than being thrown.

It was not going to be a swift journey, but there was no reason to believe the change would be followed swiftly by another, and the darkness might make her mother think twice before attempting to chase her down; it seemed to burden the soul with the desire for inaction, but she was already putting one foot in front of the other, already stranded outside in it, which was much easier to continue than it would be to set out into it from a place of relative safety.