H U Y A N A
the world is drowning

He stands still as a sentinel, a dark granite soldier with sapphire eyes, the statuesque effigy of some god of war. Her words, fleeting and hushed, seem to make no dent in such a perfect exterior, but something strange glistens in those jewel-bright eyes, set in that face that has surely witnessed the fall of a hundred, a thousand nations. If eyes could be likened to windows, those of Deimos would be well-curtained indeed; but, for perhaps the most fleeting of moments, they behold recognition, surprise, even, if such a thing could be entertained by one who could snuff out a life with little more than a breath. I know of Isilme, he says, and his words cut her to the bone, and she shivers as if the coldest northern wind has found a fancy to her hair. She tilts her head in a movement that may have been perceived as coy, save for the grave expression in her eyes and the grim line of her black-velvet lips. Huyana has known many strange things, but none stranger than one who knows of your dead - something so inexplicable, so incomprehensible, she cannot help but discount it to fate. Isilme, land of monsters and night angels and rain dancers - thrown to the hounds of shadow and lain beneath a starless sky to drown in its own darkness. In its spring downpours she had been baptized, in its gentle summer showers life, and its autumnal showers wisdom and knowledge. And he knows of her.

Deimos does not show any more emotion than well-versed detachment, her mouth cracks slightly, lightening the rigor of her face. She must seem the polar opposite of him; where she is as dynamic and prone to whim as the wildest of rivers, he is static, a magnificent work of malevolence, but perhaps they are less different than you are wont to assume. After a long look and a dismissive flick of her tail, Huyana lets her weight fall back onto her haunches, and she begins to draw back. "I'm afraid the day begins to die," she sighs, her pleasant voice falling onto the winter air like the babble of a spring-brook. Above them, the sky is drab grey, and the sun's absence is especially obvious in the cold winter-land. "Would you spare the time to accompany me home, Deimos?" Huyana wonders aloud, watching him from beneath thick dark eyelashes. Snowflakes entangle themselves in her long inky forelock. "We live in dire times, and the journey back home is no jaunt," she says, dipping her head downwards and turning slowly towards the western path towards the Aurora Basin, keeping an ear on this remarkable stranger.