It all comes down to a single moment,



The complements pour over her, sugary sweet and pleasing to her ego, drawing a simpering smile to the surface. Beautiful horned beings, indeed; she arches her neck an added degree as if to agree with her own resplendence, though consciously she wonders if the girl has anything more than flattery to explain her presence here. A glance is given to Jorogumo, thankful for her silence; the barbs on her tongue do not heed the moment, anyway.

This child must feel safe, secure here. Only then could Illynx learn her secrets; mortals were simple creatures, ones that required love and respect, and once they believed they had earned it, all things under lock and key gleamed in the sunlight for her eyes to devour. It was a matter of time, of proper manipulation and verbal skill, a lesson so meaningful to any woman destined for darkness as she and the moon eyed child were to learn.

Illynx had been forced to teach herself. Jorogumo would suffer no such cruelty.

The dulcet wind of her winter haven embraces the trio as they walk, the sight of the lake broadening on the horizon as the valley spilt into the most splendorous sections of its rolling hills and evergreen dappled borders, the snow a blanket to unify it all. Should she be pointing out the names and meanings of these places they traipse past?

”Fair enough,” she concludes at the end of Abishia’s answers to her questions, though she still wonders to what true purpose she so desperately wants to walk among the blessed of the earth. She splits left, pulling them towards the very heart of the land, the highest hillock amidst the center of the valley, where they can view all of the splendor offered to her kin in one sweep of the eye and she can play tour guide without such long pauses between the introductions of her treasures.

Still, the probing of her thoughts nags upon the golden Lady, lures her into more questions to fill the gaps of silence.

”Are you completely impure?” she asks, glancing over at the painted child with a raised brow and a gleaming eye, ”More bluntly… were both of the deviants who produced you hornless?” If the child answers that she is of purely equine decent, the mare might allow her to remain for a while longer in the mountain before she casts her away, the other two options available to reply with holding entirely different results.

Should she be half bird, the Lady will have no choice but to force her into the iron prison or kill her. She can allow no such disgrace to her good name.

Yet, should she be half royal, her crown stolen by the impure actions of her family, the Gilded Blade may yet have use for Abishia of Golden Complements. Her mind trails off through her valley, into the dark woods bordering it all and the mountain passes guarding their privacy, to a dark stallion with gleaming bronze writ into his flesh. A master of metals, a creator of beauty from nothingness, and how many uses he holds for her dark mind; how very much like possession these feelings that wash over her as he crosses her thoughts.

He could save her, sweet Abishia. He could save them all, the lost ones, the children foresworn by the idiocy of their parenting, and together they could rid the earth of the blasphemers who condemned mere children to a life of no use beyond manual labor and the blood that might pour from their veins.