He saw her.

The little shadow mare didn't shift her weight, she didn't turn her golden eyes away, she barely breathed as his icy blue pools held her own. There were no polite acknowledgements, no noble gestures or motions of honour bestowed to either party. They simply were, together at the Fields, beneath this magical midnight that seemed to hum from the bracelet clasped about her foreleg. His own magic tried to draw on her, and she felt the fatigue, the drain pull on her, but something within her seemed intent on refusing him. It was as if the dragon that resided beneath her skin would breath its fiery breath and consume his magic before it was able to consume her, and perhaps it held some truth. Akaith flew out of range of the Reaper's deathly enchantment, and through the bond that had hatched her golden egg, the little queen further gave her beloved the energy, the will, the determination to go on, to move past this obstacle that was her own mistakes, her own actions.

What had she done?

She had inspired action. It was what she had intended to do this whole time. The devious little shadow knew they would not listen to reason, to a diplomatic solution - or at least, that was what she assumed. She had been held prisoner in their lands, along with many others of her kin, her family, and she had seen the cruel way they treated even their own kind. Xanthos had been as much a prisoner there as she, and she had liberated him, welcomed him into the clutches of a family where his skills could be put to a use that would benefit the land, and all of them. The Reaper spoke, and in those words, Mirage felt like she was compelled to simply release them to him, then and there, without another word as to their future or their past. Deimos had been held within the walls of the Edge against his will too, her own sister had captured him to ensure her safe return home - something that both horrified and warmed the little shadow's heart. That there were those in this world willing to sacrifice their own skin in the name of her own was touching, for she would do no less for them, but it horrified her that she had come so close to losing her sister forever - what if Kali's grasp upon the Reaper's magic had slipped, and both of them had fallen?

The mare didn't linger on the past, for it was too clouded, too convoluted to make sense of right now. She listened to his words, and a breath later, she replied with her own, in tones that were no less promising of doom to come should they be ignored.

"We want peace."

@[Deimos]