The wicked one cackles along with the youth; let them object, indeed! Beloved too took what she wanted, when she wanted it, unafraid of mortal tethers or judicial frames, knowing, perhaps more deeply than most, that all of it was nothingness, in the end. What mattered was the poignant pulse of her black heart, and what that chaos might bloom from the wild roll of her wake, though it was likely that even that was without meaning, in the end. With her giggles still bounding though the wood, the ivory damsel lowers her head, and begins to follow the wolf, eyes searching the earth for white.

Suddenly, however, another comes, young, appearing from smoke and feathers, and the sun-riddled above. Tensions already high, the presence of a predator keeping them so, Beloved’s ears fly back in response to the peculiar arrival, her crown lifting, her hooves carrying her back several paces. A barking, angry snarl erupts from her in the process, her blade swishing impotently through the air in a defensive brandish, and her dual colored eyes narrow in on the peculiar bird-girl with a hatred not truly bound behind the porcelain of the demoness’ face.

A steam of nonsense and curses is wildly exclaimed, spittle spraying from her lips, and her teeth clicking with a sharp snap. Her silver iris shudders about the nearly nonexistent blip of her pupil, almost timed with the breath drawn into her lungs in swift, ragged inhalations. Still poised between she and the sky-witch is the tip of her rapier, always prepared to spill blood, but now mostly defending herself, from the terror of Verro (by maddened accord, anyway), the wild minded one not entirely sure whether she is under attack, or not. With erratic darts and shudders, her mind fluctuates from murder, to composure, and back again, and all the while, her ears pivot, and twitch, following every peep the others make.

Her eyes narrow as she regains her composure, the now faintly tittering to herself mare watching the proceeding conversation with the sort of wary anxiousness one bar fighter gives the other, as they both grasp broken chair legs with sweaty palms and whiskey blurred vision. That Beloved is the only fighter in the bar, and that the stupor is madness, not the drink, doesn’t seem to ease the tension lining every inch of her body.

Barnacle Bill makes her lips twitch around the flint dagger that the rest of her expression has become as she slowly follows after the two, younger vixens, her whispered nothings easing into a sweet, sugary peel of giggles to hear a God so mocked. Not Beloved’s taste, no, she the sort to withhold petty jokes and minor insults for the invocation of blood, and soul, on the sacred alter of struggle, knowing all to well the weightlessness of wind, and the heaviness of mortality; one could not win, weighing words to bodies, and the white witch, well…

She wanted to win. Didn’t we all?

So, when Oizys discovers bones and uncovers them, it’s almost surprising when the malevolent maiden steps back, her hateful eyes turning to the devious child-bird (who Beloved is becoming more and more sure is not an assailant, though she is still quite wary), instead of the Sea’s prizes.

"Take them," is all she bids, hips swaying as she saunters along behind the wolf, towards the next buried trove.


Beloved
rust every place that I touch