belladonna, in italian a beautiful lady; in english a deadly poison.

The morning sun is bleak, a trickle of illumination that for once is not the thing to rouse the limber lady from her slumber. She is already awake to face the sun, eyes tired and soul as weary as her bones. Ktulu has not returned for many days, and she is running out of excuses to tell Murtagh - when he cares to linger. Lakota had never been a creature destined for the plenitude of friends her son was clearly made for. Truly she did not care for friends in the first place. Most equines disgusted her in one way or another, and she was well aware of her own difficult nature. Often embraced and celebrated it, for how it kept others away from her. Nonetheless Ktulu's absence only drove the dagger of solitude further into her heart. She was meaningless; a Poisoner with no poison, a medic with no healing powers, a soldier with no title or task. A mother with no partner, and a son that wandered too far with his golden heart to offer her any shared joy.

Aodaun rose with her in silence, bearing the weight of her worries and woes but offering no commentary. His words could not heal this ache. His sympathy was real but his platitudes were fake. He had nothing to give her but his company, the one thing she was otherwise lacking in.

As a pair they wandered through the undergrowth, not bothering to hide their passage in this land that had been home so many times for them. And yet...never had she felt the comfort of it, the haze of belonging that others spoke of with a gleam in their eye and lips curling around guarded, secret memories. This was merely a piece of land to graze upon, a territory to defend. Her home lay in the wandering boy too far from his nest, the blackened coal of a woman with the scorching eyes who had disappeared with the season's change. She had built her home on solid rock for fear of losing it to tremors as she had so many times before. She hadn't anticipated the structure of her home to leave willingly.

Even in her misery she is not unaware, the scent of male and the chemosignals of distress pricked at her nares moments before a wavering voice split the air. For a moment she considered continuing her wandering, for she was not the one to comfort those in turmoil. She had no bedside manner to speak of. Yet...what else did she have to do?

Like smoke curling across the earth, elegant limbs twisted and carried her onward towards the speaker, dark as sin and standing alone. "Lakota and Aodaun," she announced succinctly, cocking a hip and gazing upon him coldly. Was this any better to waste her time with? She didn't care enough to ask what his issue was, or even his name, so she stood in silence. A bitter maiden with no purpose and nobody to return home to any longer. 

Lakota