A monster overheard their conversation, her journey from the north long and filled with a hunger for the flesh that had fled as soon as it became apparent that the living were inferior to those who had become Gods in death.

Talons, jutting from the bird-like claws that her hooves had transformed into, rattled against the compacted earth of the Heart, her sculpted features sharp and demonic, lit up as they were by the red glow of her eyes. Her normally gold parts were stained the shade of half dried blood, a murky, sinister maroon that glimmered in the dusky light as she approached.

Most heinous, to the mare herself (could she find that creature once known as Illynx in the folds of this evil), were the wings that rose from her shoulders, black as night. She had flown here, following the flight of the living, the monster’s mind fueling each beat and keeping the cries of horror from extending from the living soul that was slowly becoming smothered in the ebony pitch of this undead curse. The only noises that the creature uttered were shuddering, wet and grotesque sounds of breath, each suck and sop following the other in a most monstrous song.

She sees them ahead, flickering towards them with ethereal quickness and enveloped in a cloud of black smut that weaves around her form in the loose shape of her new, disfigured form, too quickly for either of the standing equines to underestimate the severity of the creatures approach.

From the lips of the gryphon mare, a soft, trailing song lifts, the shadow of her overly long and savage horn (now sharpened along the sides as a sword) cast across her hungrily gleaming eyes as saliva drips from the corners of oil hued lips. "Two horses, standing free, cannot see the others flee…" her head bobs and weaves as a snakes, tongue probing the cracking flesh of her lips, "two horses, lots of meat, waiting here for us to eat!"

And she does as she sings.

Broad, her pitch wings spread alongside her frame as she dives in towards the filly with claws reaching and maw gaping; smaller and less tasty than the stallion, perhaps, but also the more physically weak and the easier of the two to overcome. Not that the stag would be much trouble in this state – the beast was sure it could defeat a God with its new powers, some of the former Illynx remaining in the attributes of that wicked ego.

It hopes they scream as she presses in upon them, she hopes they run.

Like all wolves, she wants to chase them.

Illynx