It all comes down to a single moment,



She watches the reactions of the moon-eyed girl in response to this unusual turn of events, curious herself as to how the child’s first interactions with a true game of wit rather than one of violence would play out. The Lady hears the hesitancy of the growing babe to accept that all is well in the eyes of the Gilded Blade, but the smile that Illynx wears on her lips should portray plenty enough for the dark damsel to glean that there was more at play than what lay upon the surface, broadened in its depths by the painted equine’s submissive nature towards even the young Jorogumo.

Princess, she mentally laughs, glancing at the filly as she turns to walk into the lands, is that what I have made her? Or is this young woman so strange that all who wear horns are truly above her status, a foe arrived pre-tempered for our games?

The question is whispered as the walk begins, sooner than she had expected of the girl; she overestimates the level of this child’s understanding, finding that she is quite pleased with her intelligence and slightly distraught by the fact that she cannot see what is happening before their very eyes. Her grin, however, never wavers, a golden eye turned to look with a twinkling light down on one of her chosen students. ”All will reveal itself,” she replies, her voice equally low and muted for the secrecy of their passing, though she is sure that Abishia will notice that they whisper between each other, ”be patient, and watch. There are lessons to be learned in this walk.”

Lessons, even, for the Lady Illynx, who pauses with a most curious expression upon her face as Abishia removes her amulet, a gleaming beacon of the Sun’s power, and offers it to her, the gold flashing against the pure canvass of the snow; the girl’s words press into Illynx’s ego and inflate it syllable by syllable, her wonder at who she has invited home with her growing with every passing moment. It is at points like these that she wonders if her impulsiveness should be more carefully controlled, a flash of worry that she has unleashed a strange sort of plague into her home to have found a girl so obviously deluded on the realities of her life and that around her. But she must know; even if it means she will have to fight to restore a broken peace in the wake of this, she cannot simply walk away from such an alluring contradiction as a lamb entering a den of lions to dote upon the gleam of their claws.

A frown lines her mouth at Jorogumo’s quick response to the seemingly harmless offering of a necklace, lowering her lips to the object and grasping the chain between white teeth. She listens to the poison slip out of her adopted child’s vocal box as she twists her head back around to loop the gold about her leg band’s upper point, returning her eyes to the girls at the final sounding of the word, “filth.” She clears her throat, looking sharply towards the dark filly before returning her eyes to the girl who had offered her such a prize. ”I am thankful; do not let Jorogumo’s sharp words sting too deeply. She only seeks to defend my honor.”

Continuing on her path into the mountain now that she assumes all has been settled between the savage, white eyed girl and her curious threshold discovery, dark tail streaming along behind her and dragging its dips through the powdery snow. Maintaining a slow pace to allow the still growing children to keep pace with her, her curiosity gnawing away at her belly, slowly becoming unbearable; she could find no reasons as to why this child was so odd and could take the mystery no longer. ”Tell me, Abishia – why is a hornless such as yourself so drawn to my people?” her features are alive with the amusement she feels when broaching the subject of their infamy, words she knew had stretched far and wide from the bellowing lips of the miniature bitch Kri and the Dragon Whore of the Edge while her sister had ruled on the mountain with good Lord Mauja, ”surely you have heard the stories of the crowned devils in the North; most avoid the kin of the mountain at all costs.”

She pauses, tilting an eye towards the painted filly. ”And yet you have come twice, baring the key I gave you. You are quite brave for a failed creation, or deranged. I cannot decide which.”

@[Abishia], @[Jorogumo]