Introduction

My name is Julia Jones, or JJ, and I want to be a part of Thisby, but Thisby does not want to be a part of me.

I grew up on the edge of North America. A place where the hissing of the sea beating the sides of the cliff was a lullaby begging me to feel the cold spray of ocean foam on my face, to let the waves carry me away.

I grew up on a farm with animals, where you get an understanding of life and death before you can even write your own name properly. I grew up on the back of a horse. I grew up with the wind at my back and the world at my feet. I grew up without fear of anything. I grew up with nightmares of capaill uisce plaguing me almost every night. Most importantly, I grew up with the sick desire to see, and take place in, the infamous Scorpio Races.

I am twenty-five years old and I am not the picture of poverty or weather-worn native of the little, unchanging island. They are dark with responsibility and worry. I am golden with opportunity.

The men and women that live on this unforgiving rock, an exposed vertebrae rising out from the back of the ocean, are carved by wind and water. They are unpolished diamond; they do not glitter in the sunlight but are just as tough. They bear their teeth at those who refuse to leave when they've overstayed their welcome.

I am a riverbank, changing as the water chooses to shape me. I am soft sand carried across a desert in a windstorm. I am privileged and do not know the true taste of hunger. I don't know what it's like to want for anything. I am the stranger the wolves of Thisby turn against.

But I am determined to have Thisby, even if Thisby will not have me.

•••

I arrived on the island via ferry from the mainland five years ago; I was twenty and had been traveling the world for three years prior. My father said the only reason my mother had no problem birthing me was because my lungs and gut were full of helium instead of oxygen, and instead of sinking, I floated. I suppose in a way, he's right.

I've never felt particularly connected to the earth or the ocean or the sky, but I've also never yearned for anything more than to simply escape the ball and chain of stagnant routine. My desire to travel was, and still is, a fire that could not be quenched, and I am merely ashes now in its wake.

Being that I have come from money means that I was never exactly tied to my hometown and my father made sure that I had enough travel time in my bones each year to keep me from running away from the family in the event they would actually need me. I had seen most of the world by the time I graduated high school at seventeen, but I'd not done a single thing alone until then.

I can remember the first time someone spoke of the capaill uisce and the deadly race that happened every November on an island that, at first, sounded like a mythological place than an actual point on any map.

I had had been sent down to the docks to fetch fresh lobster for dinner –it was my parent's anniversary and I had told them I would cook for them. It was a rare offer from me, and they had been pleased enough to do my chores for me so I could retrieve the proper items I needed. The man dealing the lobster was rotund with rosy cheeks I knew were not colored by the sun, but rather the wind and the sea salt and the sand he'd encountered in his years as a fisherman.

He spoke idly to another vendor about murderous water horses that sometimes burst from the waves on the beach of a place he called This-bay. I, a naturally curious young girl, had poked and prodded him as we bartered the price of his lobster for information on these creatures and this place. He filled my head with visions of horses with coats slick from seawater and lips foaming red with blood. He spoke of how only the bravest of men dared to try to tame them and ride them in a race that was sometimes a race to their death. I was captivated. But by the time we were done and I had my lobster and a head full of monsters, I realized I did not know what these creatures were called. I asked him and he only smiled and walked away. It wasn't until I realized that he'd actually told me, but at the time the name had sounded like the groaning of a swollen ocean in a storm.

Capaill usice.

I arrived home declaring that I was going to become a jockey –though I'd never run a horse in a straight line at a sustained gallop simply for the thrill of running in my life, I was a girl of stadium jumping and cross country courses—and my father laughed. "JJ," he said with mirth thickening his already deep voice, "you'll do yourself no good dreaming of riding monsters. You'll only be rewarded with a head full of nightmares."

But I couldn't help it.

From that moment on, I tortured myself with thoughts of horses that smelled of dead coral and rotting fish. I dreamed of their teeth ripping into my chest and digging my heart out, taking it to sea. I dreamed, always, of me on their backs with nothing but the horizon stretching before us, the setting sun a thing to catch. I was intoxicated to get to this far, far away island. Everything I did was in preparation for getting to this place. I learned to train horses from my father; I learned to speak their unspoken language. I became the woman I thought I needed to be. I was strong and full of pride with no hint of humility or fear in sight.

Then I graduated high school, and suddenly I cut myself loose and floated away on an unexpected breeze. I visited places I'd seen once with my parents, but now I was alone. I didn't stay anywhere for too long, and I certainly didn't bother making friends. I was not traversing the globe looking for partners. I was simply doing it because that was what my capricious soul had told me to do.

But three years came and went, and I was twenty when I returned back to the family farm in California. My parents were happy to greet me, but frowned when I told them I was not staying for long. I had only returned to take three things: my gear, my dog, and my mule.

I took my saddles and bridles and wraps and whips because if I was going to tame something that the wild November Sea gave birth to, I was going to need the things I was comfortable in.

I took my dog, a middle aged hound with no spectacular breeding named Ed, because if I was going to a place I didn't know, I was going to need something familiar at my side.

I took my mule, an ugly white creature named Roach, because I'd once seen him mutilate a mountain lion that'd been stalking our crop of yearlings. If I was going to be playing with monsters of my nightmares, I was going to need something brave enough to face the shadows with me.

I was determined for Thisby to become a part of me, even if Thisby did not want me to become a part of it.

A/N: well it's been a while since i've been active, hasn't it? to my old watchers, hello! to the new ones i might have, hello to you too! i've recently been captivated by maggie stiefvater's the scorpio races. it is a world that has sunk its hooks into me and will not let me go. this is a story set in the world of TSR and an indeterminate amount of time after the end of the book itself. the world has not changed in the slightest, and the people of thisby are as frigid as the waters that surround their island. jj is a work of my own, but the world i have placed her in is not. enjoy!