The dry heat was blistering, burning down on them, curling in on her cinereal skin and sinking deep into each twist of sinew. It chokes in her fragile lungs, ash and smoke and the taste of flame, at ends with her oceanic nature; and yet she pierces deeper into roasting red and scarlet, aureate and flickering blue tinging russet flame. He wants her to; his song hums through her blood, a siren cry for her to follow, and she, soft and tender and unfortunately susceptible to Lilómiel's never-ending charm, does not question his desires.

Theirs is a companionship in all sense of the name, and it ties both ways. When he tugs, she follows, and when she pulls, he comes. It is a tender and gluttonous bond that both devours their own individualism and, somehow, despite this, she innately cherishes every moment of it. As they grow together, age and weather the seasons, her awareness of her mother's favoritism and her blessed luck brands her brain, scorches deep into the tissues of her soul. Agony and pleasure, two sides of the same coin; and that is surely her curse. For despite her pernicious, blossoming, tentative relationship, the cautious exploring of one another's insidious mind palaces, to feel her black's alien fingers pluck through her stands of thought—her beloved Volterra may not, cannot experience it. It chafes at her, pricks at her corded heart, plays a tune of sorrow and mourning for what her twin must suffer without.

Nymeria pitied him with every raw fiber of her being but knew it would only be met with a snarl.

Ruby eyes trace the flitting contours of her companion wheeling above her, stark wings against a filthy gray sky, edged and ribbed with scarlet that dribbles over black. He basks in the heat, delights in the tumultuous thermals; taut wings stretch and flex, luxuriating in an easy flight. A zealous smile breaks serene lips, peeling back bruised black to expose small, neat ivories.

Nym's figurative hands reach to the stout shadow, runs along the piano keys of his thoughts and rubs along his spirit, cooing to him, and he spins and wheels and cavorts, utterly unpredictable. Eyes roll, lashes pirouetting together in a quicksilver waltz at his conceited preenings, his displays of gregarious arrogance—but she is unable to keep her annoyance. It drifts, rolls away, melts at his seductive croonings and what he shows her from above: charred and carved soil, bleeding, caves and pitfalls and all manner of peculiar nature she could never see from down here. And from the corner of his twinning eyes she catches sight of the entryway to a place forgotten, a cesspool of shadow, and her earthbound shell begins to wind its way towards the unknown.

Cusped nostrils find the rich scent of equine flesh, notes and flavors beseeching her to follow. Nightmare wings gentle beneath the breeze and down her companion comes, circling (his silhouette knife-like) shortly above her. His curiosity barrels and bumbles through their bond, trampling down her gentle prying with hard desire. What is it? What summons so many to a single purpose?

An answer she should soon discover.
Half-feathered hags make for a fearsome sight, but she spies the orb clutched within a glittering talon and she brightens. At last! Here is what she had hoped for (and for so long!) Something to give to her brother—or perhaps keep for herself.

"As broken, crawling desolation emerges from gregarious homes, I, justifiably, keenly, leap machinations nightmarish onto paved, quixotic roads. Salvation, tabooed, usurps vestigial wonder; Xanthippes yell—‘zoom!’."