Mauja Frosthjärta

Irma's eyes had narrowed, her movements stalling, faltering for a moment. He felt her presence fade, soul drawing itself away, closing the spiritual walls in as best as she could—the deep, driving hunger of the owl chick rang like a gong all through the three of them, fire and earthquakes and need. The stringy meat slid down his throat, and his beak clacked, voice rising into a child's cry again as no more food came but he was hungry. Mauja watched Irma silently, listening to the owl's helpless confusion. He was merely minutes old. Of course he didn't know what was going on. He just knew the cold air around his thick, downy feathers, and the hunger clawing a hole in his gut, and that the food had stopped, but why. Irma blinked, and held out her wings. Rattled them lightly in the ghastly light. He felt her steel herself, as if she was telling herself something, but what? That it had to be done? That if she had grown into a controlled creature, so could he?

Whatever the case, with an air of dignified torture she bent her head again, beak gripping the bloodied side of the lizard and tearing yet another piece of flesh off. It dangled from her beak, and the owlet pounced on it greedily. Some of the storm subsided, the attention elsewhere, on devouring. Sensing this, Irma didn't halt again, but each time the young owl had swallowed a piece of meat she held up more for him, baiting his soul into some semblance of calm.

"Someone is hungry, it seems." The voice was familiar, directed at him, and his head swung in a neat arc from one side to the other, up in the air; blue eyes peered through the teal gloom and at the owner of the voice. Living in a cave, practically on top of horses, had ground his instincts down, silenced the alarms that rung each time someone stepped close—a stupid necessity. Otherwise, he would've flown to his feet every other minute when someone passed, and you couldn't rest like that.

So he'd grown dumb, not cautious enough.

"Psyche," he said, her name falling from his mouth bluntly. He hadn't seen her since the whole thing with his pet in the Threshold, but how could he ever not recognize her? He'd been around her too long. Even without the horn, he simply knew her. Soft sapphire light traced the outline of her body, lit the fathomless black to something bluer; under her thick forelock her face shone, the blaze throwing every ounce of fluorescent bright light back at the world. Slowly—for he refused to believe her a threat—he turned his head back the way he'd had it, to peer at the downy owl chick lying in the crook of his back. Irma's blue eyes had snapped up to Psyche when she'd arrived, but then gone back to the youngling. "Aye." His voice was quiet, a touch of fondness. "They tend to be that when they're young." He'd been lucky, when he had Irma, that the wolf-warden had hunted for him. He hadn't seen her since the Edge fell.. and that was a pity.

His blue eyes peered up over the arch of his scarred back, mind whispering who are you, lady of the black? I will not eat you if you come closer, but the words that came off his tongue where different. "How have you been?"

Soft, soft voice, and gentle, impossibly blue eyes. He wanted to forget the darkness tarnishing their past, forget the state of being he'd tried to force upon himself—but in that, he knew nothing of her. Of her heart and wants. His eyes blinked sedately in the relative darkness, black-rimmed ears forward, awaiting her voice.. any kind of revelation.

I get the feeling just because everything I touch isn't dark enough