He watches those lips tremble, empty of any sense, void of an answer to the simplest of riddles. His lids fall over eyes that roll into the back of his skull; he is too exhausted to hide his scorn at the filly’s vexing nature. He sighs, a silent thing that lifts his shoulders and lets them drop; something wispy and incoherent escapes her, then, an explanation of things that is too simple for him to follow. He turns away from her, surveying the blood water, the shadow-cloaked tree-line of the forest, anything, everywhere, as long as it’s not the spotted thing that stammers before him. Oh, yes. She is a filly; he trusts his senses better, now.

He is pulled into even further wakefulness, pushed and pummeled into awareness, into thoughtfulness. He considers killing her, and throwing the body into a pond that is already blood-soaked; it lingers in his mind, this idea that mildly amuses him and soothes the prickle of annoyance that this boring creature has caused by jarring him from his waking dreams. Come to think of it, it wouldn’t do for him to stand in any place, nodding off into whatever dream took his fancy. He blinks, tail weaving behind him as he contemplates his mistake. Really, but it was a good thing that he attained consciousness when he did, before something larger, sinister, and far more important stumbled upon him.

There is salt in her disgusting scent. He remembers that place; he knows the Edge, where his Father dwells, where Macaria is destined for, to reign as a petal-laced princess at his Father’s feet. He sighs, again, deciding. It would not do for the body of an Edge-subject to be found floating in a shadow-laced place, his hoof-prints marked so sweetly against her ruined hide.

“You’ve wandered far,” he says, his tone gravelly and severe, his only admonishment toward the child. He does not care, really, how far a filly might wander from her mother’s side—though there must be someone who fears for her safety, one of those peons whose job it is to fear. He stalks off from the water’s blood-red edge, his movements slow and stiff with sleep; he expects her to follow.

“You will go home.” She does not understand the mercy he shows, the rarity in it, all because of the salt that adorns her brow.





@[Myrrine]--For Timeline's sake, can we assume this thread is set after the SWP reveal? We can have a thread in the Edge taking her home after this, if you like!

”Watch for Circe.”