Second chances

ludo Braved the forests, braved the stone Braved the icy winds and fire Braved and beat them on my own There was so much heartache in the pale child, and yet Ludo had no interest, for once, in playing games with her. It was tethered against its will to an upstart, a non-deity, and though it possessed its mask it did not possess it, in that sense of the word. So it was with a languid, shared sort of exhaustion that it drifted down in answer to a prayer that may or may not have been intended for it. Should Maea's eyes open, she would find herself nose to nose with a porcelain mask whilst a slip of a rag tickled at her ear. "You have seen much for one with sight so poor," it remarked in a voice little more than a whisper. "What is it you pray for? Hope? What is hope, in a world as cruel and isolated as this one? Is it living one more Longheat? Or is it not having to survive another Deepfrost?"