As she has done for the duration of this conversation, she listens seemingly attentively while her mind wanders over each word and facet of their meaning. It is obvious that her offer has won over the heart of the painted child by the way she smiles, the quick banter of her voice and how quickly she pledges her soul before she can even fully comprehend what it is she dreams of. The Lady smiles her own smile, a pretty lace covering for the soiled rot within, all the more humorous and brilliant as the child makes known that she will not be a servant.

Though you already are, the woman thinks, though she lets none of her thoughts read in her disposition, the trustworthy light that shines from her harlequin’s mask. That the child thinks her fake horn will fool others is equally amusing, but the Lady’s offer will surely make her more believable should the first attempt to disprove its realism be a well aimed swipe at the false appendage. She knew how well glass survived hard falls – not at all.

For all her silence until now, Jorogumo is the first to meet the wandering equine with words in retort, and Illynx barely refrains from scowling in disdain, her golden eyes darkening a few shades as she hears the word that shatter the delusion she would like to have the girl believe. She cannot change that the idiot girl is shouting foul insults at a very deserving creature, merely hope that Abishia walks away from the moon-eyed girl’s harsh words with faith that she will be the only opposition to be found here, once she wears her fool’s cap.

Even as annoyed as the golden bitch is with the equally horrid ebonite youth, she must admit that there is a certain savant to the way that she tells off the inferior child. Illynx is proud of herself as she watches the fruit of her subtly planted thoughts come into play, the sharp barbs of the girl’s tongue accurate as they are wounding.

Sadly, almost, she witnesses the damaging barrage come to a close, her student turning to her with all the politeness in the world before she takes her leave. The Lady gives a miniature nod of her head, lilting tones following after the dark one. "As to you, my little spider!" There is a fondness in her words that is genuine in her heart for the mostly unlikable little bitch; after all, Illynx had been the one to find her, and it was to the Kisaki that it seemed the darling looked to for guidance and leadership if her blame that dark day of not so long ago was anything to go from. As it always was with the Queen of Snow, she could not dislike the young, especially those so destined for greatness as her little Jorogumo.

"She has had a life of much pain," she explains as soon as the child has faded out of hearing distance, turning her golden eyes to look upon her guest, "I discovered her abandoned in the Threshold, and she was later taken by the darkness, Time be blessed for returning her safely to us. She does not know that she is so cruel. Hurt is all she knows." Sighing as if sorrow consumes her for the plight of the spider child, she spends a moment behind shuttered lids before returning her eyes out into the valley she rules.

"Do not let pride reveal your guise, should these things come to fruition," she warns, eyes sliding back towards the filly, "it will be a crown, to be sure, but it will be only a mask. Your blood will remain what it is – your children can be born as ruined as you, no matter what I do to improve your face. Do not let it slip." Her pause says all it needs to of her people, her final words a seal on the dark envelope that the contract had been slipped into. "I cannot save you if you birth an unworthy child into this herd and the people desire your heart in exchange."

Looking back out into the vale, she gestures with her golden crown to the beauty that lay before them, letting the pause bring a close to her warnings and entry for a lighter topic, the reason Abishia had wanted to come to the palace of unicorns in the first place.

"From here, you can see all that is worth seeing but the far northern caves; night should be here soon. Perhaps the night will dance for us this eve." She of course means the lights for which the place was named, but they were too precious to truly be called the same thing that one called ordinary illumination; a rainbow that writhed and sang a silent, haunting song, beautiful and lurid all at once, a splendid array of the might of the universe for mortal eyes to spy upon during the high hours of the night.

There was a river once,
with many round stones
enchanted by shallow hopes
of embracing the ocean;
water is peculiar this way,
how its life is a line
that cannot bend or change
without the approval of its bed.