"She would not be anywhere near the north," says the woman as she turns towards the paths that lead out of the snow and into the rest of the kingdom, "the north has been ours since the Lord Time brought us to it, and she knows as much; she won’t be anywhere near the snow. She’ll be west. As far west as she can go." Her features grow miserly with the notion of all that heat and sand, the endless void that is the sea. Even as a child she had not liked the ocean, how it seemed more blue than even the sky and just as unattainable; either way, she was not the best swimmer. She could float and wade well enough, but the thought of all that water and the rage it sometimes possessed left her filling chilled on the inside just as much as the idea of its endless sun made her want to peel her flesh off already.

At least she knows that Psyche is not in the Edge, or in the Throat, or even the Foothills; her sister did well on assuring she’d have no where to run but the dark hollows of the wilds, holding more enemies than sharp words on the tip of her tongue. Illynx’s heart ruptures in terror and concern for her Empress, her golden limbs flashing quickly in the speed of her power walk with little care given for whether or not Torleik was willing to hold such pace or if he even had followed her.

She’d talk to empty air all the way if she had to. It would just be nice to have company for once, she thinks, and Torleik is a good choice for such a venture. After all, they’d talked well and long enough already; surely it could carry on for many miles. Maybe they’d even find Psyche.

The thought makes her heart race all the faster, her golden gaze glancing over to the snow dusted stallion with a smile soft on her lips, hiding the hurting of her soul, though surely he knows it is still there behind her hope. "What do you already know of our heritage? I can fill in what the madman left out," madman of course in reference to her Engineer, about as sane as a tree with a spiraled, glitter dusted trunk, "we haven’t much. But maybe you could turn some of the stories into one of your stories?"

She hadn’t forgotten what he’d said at the herd meeting, and while she was a callous, hateful, and self serving bitch, the thought of music pertaining to the glorious sound of battle made her blood fill with enthusiasm for the rising of its notes. While she doesn’t say as much, she’d like to hear him sing them someday, the slightest reference hinted in how she mentions them, her fear and sorrow slipping behind the vibrant colors of the story of her life.

----- Elapse -----

Over time, she’d slowed to a less tiring walk, simply strolling alongside her handsome companion as she reiterated all she knew of the Aurora Basin and those who lived within it. She’d covered the families within the snow, individuals who had found one another and seemed to linger with one another through any peril they faced, the wars they had fought, the names of those her kin had slain if she knew them or their stories, how life was always perilous in Helovia; she had even highlighted the failed romances and some of the intrigue involving Psyche and the former Lord Mauja, some of her reasons for feeling as she did about her lost friend and the man who had broken her heart.

Whatever Torleik felt of the other men in the Basin, surely none were as pitiful an excuse for men as Mauja. Illynx says about as much with a delicate laugh lacing the air, the pair arriving in the sandy, golden grasses that spanned the distance between the willow grove and the first view of the sea; she can smell the brine carried in on eastbound winds, pausing where the sea of gold first rises from the dreamy, grey green maze of the willow wood to look over at the man who, while she did not know it yet, would come to replace the sociopath who had wrongly risen to a throne alongside her.

The sun is low, most of the day lost as they’d walked and conversed, and she feels the sadness start to rise within her again that they have come all this way and Psyche is still not here.

"I don’t know what I’ll do if something has befallen her," she says, golden eyes flashing fretfully and brows stitching together, knowing that her Empress is not safe in this world of threats that would hurt her in hopes to lure her useless ice king from the shadowy hole he’d fallen into, "I owe her my life, I have built it alongside her. Can a mountain still stand with its core devoured?"

She does not know. She’s barely aware that she’s speaking aloud, staring out over the rippling grasses into the brim of blue that is the sea, how the sun is bloody and hangs against the frame of the world and mocks her soul. Sighing, she takes a few steps forward and peers about her, hoping against hope that there, there in the distance, will stand a black mare with a white streak emblazoning her face, that Psyche will part the umber sea before her and fall against her as she always has in the past.

But she is not there.

"It’s late," she gives in, "we should look for somewhere safe to rest. She is not here."

@[Torleik]
[ OOC: Continued from this post; set in the end of Tallsun year 3 shortly after Psyche's departure from the Aurora Basin. This means, yes, it is set almost a year in the past! If you join in pleaseeee be sure to appropriately write out the timeline for the sake of my sanity. <3 ]