Reyna

They come together like a clashing of ice and fire, two extremes of innocence and depravity that bite and retreat cowardly before her eyes. They are mere children to her, and she sees in them squabbling pups, biting at the other's nape only to run to mother's softness when sharp newling teeth bite back. Cocking a hind leg, Reyna watches them, sees the shadow of a lie that crosses over the blunted teeth of the one that so catches her eye. Further amuses herself with the saddening naivety of the winged one, who drinks his manipulation like a parched wolf would a poisoned spring. It has little to do with her, so she does not intrude, merely observing the odd smoke and mirrors act that had never dared to exist on Vulthane. Draconic children were not so cruel as to delve into mysticism and deception without necessity. Seeing it come to life like a blackened rose blooming in the snow around them is a new experience, one to add to her thousands of lives already lived.

Reyna is patient, and she knows as well as she knows the pattern of her own breaths that their attention will turn to her in time, like polar magnets of attraction while they shove one another away before her eyes. Sure enough, Reginald is first to consider her once more, meeting the calm stare of her hypnotic october eyes. Though there is a sense of indignation, to be told that dragons in Helovia are small (a horrifying thought, to her), it is something she must take in stride. Helovia is not Vulthane, and the priestesses would scold her for not opening her mind to the possibilities of other planes, other worlds and the rules that surely govern them.

A frown of contemplation pulls at her pretty, black lips. Far from upset, she merely considers what the boy has told her. "An odd thing, but I suppose I shall discover such things in time." Reyna was not one to allow herself to be ignorant, she would seek out such information until the need to know had faded into nothingness and she was contented.

It is not until words slither like an oily serpent from the boy's lips that she regards him with any different emotion, and her smile is nearly fond as it folds her lips subtly. "I, too, am a nomad. My kind never keep to one place. Perhaps I can ask you for your knowledge of these lands later?" Discovery and adventure were appealing, but Reyna did not like unwelcome surprises, and Reginald's existence alone was a sign that impure souls lurked in the shadows of Helovia's being.

The little one, Rei (truly she is not little, but her personality pulses with innocence, and she is young beyond belief even in comparison to the physically younger Reginald) draws her mind. Eloquent phrases detail a life she cannot imagine, one of heat and distress painted in the fantastical light of beauty and an adoration Reyna cannot comprehend. How can one love a land? She has loved a thousand lands, a million particles beneath her hooves and a billion more that she had absorbed inside herself the many years she'd lived. Land was intangible to her, for though it existed beneath her, solid like masonry and the mantle of the inner earth, it was merely an idea. The earth ruled itself, after all, and she was merely sustained by it.

Her curiosity drives her, and her head tilts to regard Rei with a new intensity, as if intending to pry the flesh from her bones and reveal the answers through brutality, for daring to hide these things from her. "I would like to see this land you speak of. Especially if it is called the Dragon's Throat. The idea of permanent residency is...strange to me." A soft snort punctuated her thoughts, and for the first time since she'd stood, Reyna moved forth on light hooves. "I would be grateful if you were to take me there."

devils don't fly