Melting into one another, the sensation of belonging nearly overtakes her, a feeling that she has not truly had a chance to examine since she was very small. Always an outcast, even in the years she had walked alongside her dark companion, her heart was alone even when she stood among a thousand figures with familiar faces, except in these precious, stolen moments. With no eyes to judge her but those which she wished to truly see her for all that she was and could never be, the Lady lets herself slide into the quiet complacency of simply touching another, drawing from her well of internal strength what she can to fortify her own quaking soul. In this embrace lies so much more than a pleasant exchange of body heat, so much more than even she can understand or recount, for it symbolizes that even if the world falls down around her tomorrow, she will still have somewhere to run.

The ebony queen pulls away from her and she is left with a sickening emptiness where the warmth of her friend had once been, an emotion she quickly discards as useless and ceases to acknowledge. It is equally as fair, anyway, to gaze upon the pale, silver light that dances along the curves of the Empress, the soft curve to her back that marks her baring the gift of life, a daughter called Sno. Illynx has never met her, this girl born of unknown loins, only seen glimpses of the filly before the golden wench had slipped away one evening and out into the wilderness. It had been a long time before she’d come home.

Sno was already gone.

Was it cold of her to admit that she had been glad to not have a challenge confronting her selfish possession of the black queen?

She matches the former Lady’s smile with her own, reminiscent and gentle on her pretty face, though she wonders to whether the times had truly been good at any point in time for any living soul. Life ruined what goodness they were born with. She supposed that the children might love the mountain, find great peace in its white shawl and stride fearlessly through the beginnings of their lives; but the Lady Illynx was jaded by the passing of time, she suspected all of treachery against her and most of them failures to comply to her standards. The only thing good of those times had been the ease in which her life had flowed, and that Psyche had been near and capable of baring this ridiculous weight that had been left on her shoulders.

She had already blamed Psyche for that, once. It was time to complain about other things.

She let the mare search her face, where she would find lines grown into the flesh that had not once been there and the first few white strikes of grey leaking their way into the darker parts of her coat. Her golden eyes, boundlessly glimmering, were darker in their depths than they had ever been, and she still was not of the most glamorous physical condition due to the time she’d been forced to bare underground and as a wraith… but overall, she was well. It seemed most of her plans to create friendship and strengthen bonds between herself and the rest of the herd had been working, albeit slowly, and she felt more secure with both Torleik and Ulrik guarding her from the fiendish ways of the Reaper.

”The lights are always pretty. It is only our eyes that grow dark and unable to observe their gleam," she speaks with a smile, necklaces jangling as she tilts her head and neck playfully towards her friend. She wants to say so much, to delve into every small facet that has led her here with the ideas she holds in her mind, the new way she has come to view the portrait of this life she has been cannon balled into. Instead, she tries to make sense…for once in her miserable existence. ”Part of me thinks the Lord Time wears on the soul of whoever leads his herd, as punishment for our plans,” a laugh follows her words, short and bright, a sign of her good humor towards the God no matter the truth of her assumptions, ”it is good for Deimos he has nothing left to forsake. A pity for such gentle women as ourselves...”

She looks out into the star flecked horizon she can view from the opening into their hidden place, sighing softly and watching the white cloud dissipate into the air. ”You and Mauja changed everything, for us,” she continues, ”there is no going back. Not now. No matter how afraid you are of the consequences of our rise to our rightful places above the others or how thin the Storm Lord has stretched your soul.” Knowing that her dearest is not in the place to willingly confront the dying creature she has left behind in her flight from the mountain, Illynx delicately places the writhing corpse of the Plague back before her sister.

It is something that must be done, for the golden bitch’s sake, if nothing else. The wolves that prowl in the snow do not forget the promises cast to them so easily.

”I grow weary of it, the endless game of deceit and how to balance it with politics among such placid kinds as World’s Edge, the Merciful’s fold of misfits,” elaborates the wench on her own opinions and standing, ”but it is essential to my success, to any leaders success, on that mountain. I will play it alone, my sister, but…”

”but I would rather you fortified my strength with your own. My angel in the darkness, keeping watch over all that I cannot see from the throne you so graciously bestowed upon me. Show them their failures, their foolishness – rise, rise with me. We can have the world as we always wanted.”