From the seething darkness a shadow grows, undiminishing despite the malice that hangs in the very air itself; rather, she seems to grow, as if fed by such portent evil. Yet even she, born of moonless nights and crepuscule, would not be so foolhardy as to claim the impenetrable obscurity welcomed her. No, it swarmed on her skin and blistered her nostrils, with the rich scent of decay and death, and it urged her forwards swiftly, wary of what other monsters may walk in the stomach of the living beast that was this endless night. There is a presence to this omnipresent bleakness, as if it cocoons her in it's silken webs, hoping to suffocate her beneath it's weight, but she resists it with a toss of her head and a rolling of her eyes.

Her name is Confutatis, daughter of Oblivion, queen of hatching nightmares.
Slithering and sliding at her hooves is the Mongrel, the sooty kitsune with vermilion eyes, a leer carved onto the onyx contours of his delicate face.

The shadows lighten into the starred expanse of regular nightfall, and a tension slides from her supple shoulders. Her step lengthens, fluid as oil, her head swaying just slightly in time with her hoofbeats, eyelids slithering half-close over her eyes, Mongrel leaping from knee to shoulder to wither, where he perches, crowning her shoulders with a wave of his tails most proudly. Even despite the star-spangled sky above, she cannot help but feel a stirring of unease in her obsidian chest... why was it that the darkness did not envelop the entrance to Helovia? It seemed a trap to her, malicious and malignant, a gaping maw drawn artfully, luring the unwary, preying upon the weary. The sound of her hoofbeats quicken, crunching through the thin layers of snow, pearlescent vapor curling from her nostrils in the frigid night air. Winter had fallen soundlessly upon the outside world when they crawled within the underground.

Ahead, she sees smoke.
Within mere seconds, her limber posture grows taut, the curve of her neck sharp and brittle, audits twitched forward, nostrils flared wide as to decipher the scents that pour outward from their sources. Pine and frozen soil and the cold of ice; the rattle of bare branches shifting in the slightest of wind; a tautness to the very air (perhaps she simply imagines it.)

Mongrel growls, and she recoils as she is plunged into the chaotic sea of his emotions, the surging undercurrents of fear and hungry, the black waves of anger (who dares to threaten them?), the gray foam of curiosity. There is red in this vast ocean, sluggish channels of which she senses is her own mind, and she is consumed by him, their thoughts clashing and curling against one another, molding and shaping, malleable and softening, until they co-exist, the sky and sea merging in simplicity and common companionship. Their minds, together, demand answer to what they take as danger, the keenness of their frivolous inquisition hungry for solidifying fact.
They do not think of dragons.

They move forth, breathtakingly silent, but there is still the occasional crackling of snow beneath their feet, the snap of an iced twig dislodged by the winter storms. What they see, they do not expect.

"Wanderer or vagabond?" Confutatis questions. "King or commoner?"