There's the taint of something foul in the air, a haunting stench pervading the perfume of spring buds. It drifts, unseen and yet felt, through the dead quiet, a reek both unfamiliar and strangely comforting. Her skin prickles, itches, bristled hairs rising on an iron pelt; her mouth is dry, sour, as some ancient and innate feeling of wariness kicks in. Fear ticks a rapid tattoo in her ribcage, a pulsing thud-thud-thud which slams in her ears and presses in behind her ruby retinas. Don't be scared. What could be out there? Nothing —she was safe, here beneath her mother, pegged in by four solid limbs.

Security. Comfort. Safety. All found here, cradled beneath Confutatis; nothing would touch her when she was in the embrace of the World Eater. Nothing could vanquish her infallible mum. Still, the child shivers, curls tighter around herself, long limbs pressing in close to ribby flanks and sharp hips. Silver lashes scuttle across scarlet eyes; her throat tightens, works as she swallows down a ball of damp saliva. Some craven part of her quails, seeks only to deliver her into the depths of sleep where concerns of the unquiet mind cannot (usually) penetrate... but most of her, rigid in it's curiosity and bravery, reminds her of courage, and serial sprees, and the macabre ways of her war-mad parents. How is she to live up to them when she is older if right now all she can do is tremble in her terror? At a scent! Smells couldn't hurt her. Smells did not hit her, like her mother in one of her rages, did not make bruises bloom beneath her grullo pelt.

Volterra wouldn't be scared. Volterra would whisper to her, urge her up and anyway, and they would run through the night with stars in their eyes and foolish smiles on their little faces. They would race and chase and dance with each other beneath the cosmos, and would giggle when their mother caught them away from her flank—and when she let her magic kiss them, they would stand tall and with puffed-chests, together, unfailing in their twinly, kingly bravery.

If her brother could be brave—and she knew he was brave like mother, like father, and like all their ancient and powerful forebears—she could be brave too. And so with infinite grace and delicate, exaggerated agility (although in truth, she only barely manages to avoid tripping over herself) little Nymeria rises, and slips out from her mother's sanctuary, endlessly careful. Maybe mum could tell her what the smell was, but she wanted to find out herself; and now that she had made up her mind, it would be quite the shame to lose the oppurtunity for daring acts of which would make Volterra jealous. So gangly limbs begin to accelerate, and off she goes into the midst of the velvet night, eyes narrowed against the winds, lips pursed in daring concentration as she pushes herself faster-faster-faster. In her mind she is chasing Volterra; in her mind she is catching up; and then she's past him, and he's gone in the wind.

Back in the meadow, the World Eater, dark hellion, opens one eyelid, lets out a low sigh, and goes back to sleep.

And now Nymeria is chasing that reek which grows ever stronger, a foul stench which she does not know but soon will. For as she gallops on, closing up the vast distance between the source of the scent and her place with Confutatis, there begins to spot leaves a color which is familiar to all warriors. Scarlet. At first, only spots, only dashes of ruby and crimson splattered across dark leaves, hidden beneath the shadows of a clouded night; and then swathes of macabre coral, thick enough that even the filly cannot miss it.

It does not take a detective to realize it is blood, but the young spider does not know what b l o o d is.
On she goes.