If the woman had known the thoughts that ran within the ice and soot man's mind, she would have began to cackle with mirth at the mere whisper of Valkyrie.
For the nightingale is no hallowed amazonian to bring forth damnation upon him, she is dirtied and tattered and atrocious as the inky-black water that fills lungs and drowns
the mind's of mortals. She would then give him a deadened smile, poisonous dagger gleaming in the reflection of the incandescent heart encased in a shield of thick glass, and she would quip that if anything, she was the incubus come with the good tidings of Thanatos himself to end the lives of all those who came before her.
And she would whisper, as light as babe's breath upon the wind, that the demon had killed her, too.


She would have laughed at the homicidal urges that passed through his brain as flies flitting around hark's in the summer.
She would have lightly joked that maybe, just maybe, he belonged next to her, amidst the ghasts and ghouls of the Marsh.
But she didn't.

Because the nightingale knew nothing of the cogs and gears and workings of the ice breath's mind, knew nothing of his thoughts
and cravings, and knew nothing of him. She was but the wisp of the north wind upon summer's feathers, the laughter that sits upon the tides of long forgotten memories
to the man that she escorts down into the depths of Hell.
The woman first sees the dragonbacked, alabaster and obsidian owl upon his back in the light of the orange flames, and it turns her alight with flickering candlelight. (The woman assumes it is, a her, as she cannot tell the differences in scent of those not equine).
And the woman thinks, he has chosen a alluring companion to travel with, indeed.

She eye's the owl with but a curious and respectful air, for she admires the strength in those speckled wings, the intelligence in those endless depths.
Softness etches from violent indigo, gentle as the patter of rain, wild as the force of the wind.
"You have a elegant woman with you, lad."

What is it like, she ponders, the melded thoughts of those placed together with fate? What is it like, to know another as one know's themselves? To never, truly, be alone in the emptiness that is the world?
She meets the man's glaciers with rolling seas, broken and fixed, insane and sane. Desires and cravings and worry for families, worry for those whom she calls brother and sister, doubt for the companion that she has been promised to in the future (will he love her, despise her, be disgusted by the fractured girl he has been bonded to).
Does she deserve them?

There is hatred for enemies unspoken, there is loathing and love and affection and wonder for the stranger she has met, for who is he? The intelligence of the Asylum would not be in the position of those whom creep in the corridors if she did not grasp at the faintest strings of knowledge, did not yearn for the bliss of answers to her inquiring mind.
But she speaks none of this.
It writhes within her gaze as that of a coiled snake, and one day, she may shatter into a billion pieces upon the floor. She may snap.
And that day shall not be today, no, not now. Not yet.

The flames behind the thick glass have heated her apparel, for the faintest sheen of sweat covers her with a distinct metallic gleam that is noticeable to her lineage, and she breaks her gaze to the flickering movements of the heart, moves forward until she almost touches. Almost.
They dance within her eyes.
"What is her name?"
Lyrics wisp forth, light as birdsong, white noise in the Abyss.

A long tail swishes against dainty hooves.
Would the flames burn away her sins? For if she was a witch, was this not how she would die, one day?
Time meanders on.

Perhaps.
But that was not today.. Not yet.



Circuta</style>
who's the killer in the crowd -</style>