In the desert, most do not think of barren ground as kinder than water. For miles, there are lies, each grain of sand a little fragment in the web of mendacity. Every falsehood, however, has its opposite truth.. a revelation for the rare, crystal waters to reveal. How lucky she has a mirror as honest as one can be just outside the nursery. Many times now, she'd peered into it, her gaze meeting itself. Except it wasn't Ovinekit. Not the Ovinekit she wanted it to be. She'd always hoped to look like Mother - the faceless but graceful silhouette, with silken fur draped over her fragile figure, drifting behind her as she walked away from her daughter and into the woods. The truthful pool beyond the nursery ground its harsh paw into that hope a little firmer each time she peered into it. Ovinekit was nothing like the specter who'd brought her to the world alone. She had been tall for her age even as a younger kit, and as she continued to grow it was gradually becoming clear it would continue such a way. Her movements were inelegant, her body undefined, /nothing/ like Mother's darkened frame.. and her eyes, her eyes - Abnormal asymmetry. Imperfections everywhere her desperate gaze scanned over, how it always first found the unsatisfactory irregularity of itself. It was unfair, wasn't it..? All around the nursery had been denmates she'd admired. Braided fur, intricate patterns, eyes as deep and sincere as the ocean's depths.. Ovinekit's pelt had begun to thicken as the moons dragged on, the fur atop her head growing longer and needing to be swept to the side for sight - a protective veil between her and the pool's cruel divulgences. A choice. ..Until she returned to the kindly lies of dust where truth could not harm her, until she repudiated the hog within the waters, perhaps she would keep it that way. Her eyes had seen, and her heart had hurt, and there could be no reparations. All she could think was to blind them.
