Illynx eyes the other woman of power with no hesitancy or fear, only judgment; she shakes and shivers as if there are ghosts coming at her from all angles when it is only a woman and her babe who approach. She supposes there is good reason River Walker is so nervous around her, but she also thinks that after a certain number of nonviolent interactions the paint would get it through her ordinary little head that Illynx had better things to do than pick on daisies wearing crowns.

She is thanked for her presence, to which the golden one tilts her head in kind regard of the comment and gives no words. Either way it seems that the Queen is distracted at the moment by the child alongside her, and while Illynx is not sure what her expression means, it is not the usual doting face of girls who love kids.

What sort of flower baring ninny was this woman?

Either way, and quite ironically, she lowers her head and seems to will the mechanical scorpion the boy’s father had made seasons ago towards the colt, who eyes it most suspiciously for a splitting second before he sees my subtle smile and nod of approval that he may play with it. His eyes instantly grow broad and enthusiastic as he lowers his skinny face down to examine it, truly his father’s child with all his vibrant wonder towards the world around him and that which he did not yet understand.

Kahlua’s plan has worked; the boy no longer stares at her but is endlessly engrossed in the metallic insect which whirs and scampers. Perhaps Illynx should warn her that young boys are clumsy and wreckless… but surely she already knows such things.

It left, however, the ruler of the Edge beneath the stare of the child’s mother, which was probably far less pleasant than the innocent lack of understanding that had flooded the face of the boy. To the Lady it feels like she stands there forever with her brows lifted and gaze unbroken, as if silently urging the Queen on with an unspoken ”aaaaaand you’re here because?”

But finally she speaks.

At first its interesting enough, though passively the bitch wonders to herself why in Time’s Beard any one of his brethren had decided to help this nincompoop of all the worthy denizens of Helovia, but it was beside the point and unchangeable and so she quickly moved on from that thought. What she said next made the half amused and half mocking grin on her face slip completely.

What sort of magic required such a task?

None that was any good for her, or her people, she didn’t figure.

At least the question was asked tactfully, none of that ugly word racist floating around, but she gets what is being asked of her well enough and, while she could easily go fetch another of her company to “talk” with Kahlua, she didn’t figure any of them could resist such a temptation as the Edge’s tender, crown wearing lily deposited at their hooves.

Fuck me, she thinks, barely managing to keep her eyes from rolling as she sighs and glances back at her son, who is now several feet away still enraptured by the mechanics of the scorpion and not paying a single mind to what she or the strange woman is saying. It doesn’t really matter if he hears, she supposes, for she has already taken him with her to the first secret meeting of her guild, but she also understands the importance of his anonymity if he is going to be the most useful to her.

Few would be willing to trust the son of such a devious wench as she, but if he did manage to earn trust elsewhere, well... things could be learned when one thought you weren’t dangerous.

And what was that old saying, again? Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer?

It seemed far easier to just put them in the ground.

”What are you wanting to know? she asks, letting her features return to the painted Queen, hoping that enough will be unleashed from Kahlua’s questions that she can gather precisely what it is that the “Gods” (she was still dubious on this matter) had granted her the ability to earn, just how threatening it was to her or her budding family.

It is interesting how the moment it seems the Lady will appease her wishes how the keeper of the Glass Forest changes, gaining confidence as if she hadn’t had any in herself to begin with. Still, it was nice to have the blue eyes of the Queen meet her own golden ones, to compare their soft daylight glow to the tumultuous currents moving through her soul. Illynx is not the sort to give light to her thoughts so naively, and not the sort to arrive wanting something without a can do attitude, but if this was what had become of the great dragon warriors of the Edge, she could let Kahlua’s weakness slide. It meant that, for the first time since they had been thrown from her birth land, there was little to fear from the misty wood.

It meant that once this conversation was over, she could more light heartedly go about her nefarious tasks, her pulling of strings; even though the Edge was safe from their mayhem, she knew well enough that the peace loving idiots could barely refrain from leaping in front of any sodden lamb unlucky enough to be assaulted by her wolves.

If they came in retribution now, she would fear none at all. Let them attack with their sunlight and foolish dreams; her kin had been busy at work keeping their swords sharp and true while Kahlua had taught the Edge to knit.

So many questions flood from this new and uplifted face that has turned towards her that she finds her ears back on her head and her mouth set in a narrow grimace as she glowers at the chatterbox, wondering if the inquiries have an end to them or if she’ll faint from a lack of breath. Even when they do end, she’s immediately off on another question, to which the Lady smiles deviously, knowing how to answer the query most instantly.

”He watches the Steppe,” she says with a light giggle as her eyes sweep up the length of the bronze beast, ”and waits for his twin to be finished.” A gaggle of odd supplies and metal bits are strewn across the pathway from the completed one, the only sign that Ulrik has spent endless hours out here at the fore of the herd and in the caves themselves tinkering and crafting, molding wire and tending to the fires that melted his precious ores. ”I envisioned their might and my darling Engineer has provided for me with his talents. Is he not stunning?” She alleges that lying or with holding truth is not something she has to do anymore, but she’s still not entirely trusting of this “friendship” that existed between their two people and is loathe to forfeit all her secrets in one day. It is enough that she has informed them of danger lingering so near their borders and that she is willing to answer Kahlua’s questions.

She can wonder as to the functions aside from just staring the obviously functioning statue does.

”But you came to discuss my mind, not my people’s achievements…” she muses aloud, pulling her eyes from Ulrik’s creation and returning them to Kahlua, ”and I will try to appease you.” Closing her lids over her golden gaze for a moment, she slides back into her youth, the first dark streaks to linger in her heart, how quickly they had bloomed into great voids of nothingness. ”My mother and father were as I am, from a land not unlike some of my brothers here; pure, unstained by your kind and that of the winged ones. I never knew this land but they never forgot it, or the pride it had left in their hearts for what We are and what We deserve,” slowly her eyes reopen, but she is not looking at Kahlua, not wishing for her to see the hurt that arises in these memories of their faces, their voices, ”for reasons I do not know they left their home, settled in the land you now rule, and gave life to me several years later; so my lessons in the truth began.”

She does not tell her that they died at the hands of the mutants, that they were slain for their peaceful but loud opinions on the order of the universe, for Kahlua does not deserve that story and she cannot bare to remember the grove any longer. ”I took my first life at a year and a half old to repay debts his family had left him in towards me. I have taken many since, for similar reasons, and I will take many more,” it is said as one states that the night follows the day, that the sky is blue and so is the sea, not a ripple that she is callous and has no right to do such things reaching into the pristine and gentle tones of her voice, ”to restore order to this world and to bring honor the graves of my parents. We were first to walk this plane, the chosen of the Gods, and the others are blights to its beauty born out of sin and moral failure on the behalf of my ancestors.”

”As for why the Unicorn is superior, all one must do is look ‘round you, at those gathered near to us,” she smiles, doing just that with a turn of head, gazing out across the hidden safe haven nestled in the Steppe and finding several figures grazing or going about their daily business, ”no where will you find anything of more beauty, more grace, a line more purely magical than We. Look to your reflection and see how plain you are in comparison to how brightly We shine.”

With her ears drawn behind her and golden gaze burrowing into the turned away features of the Queen of the Edge, she hears the same whining sound from the scorpion that the painted equine does; her acid mangled ear lifts ever so slightly in concern for the small mechanical creature, not that it matters to her if Kahlua may keep her pet or not, but for the simple fact that it is one of Ulrik’s creations. Try as she might to feel no connection or bonds with the man now that she kept his child in her wake, it pressed in on her at the most inopportune moments, such as now or while she instructed Rikyn in things and saw glimpses of the shy brilliance of his sire lingering in his frame and mind.

She may has well of been speaking of the Engineer, though she was not. He’s there in her thoughts as the Queen replies, anyway, and she chases the dark lines of his storm clouds away in order to focus more fully on the conversation rather than wondering as to whether she should call him to fix something that had been meant to break. ”Indeed,” she purrs with narrowed eyes upon her smiling mask, finding the reply to her answer intriguing in its own right for it holds none of the praise for its beauty or strength that she is used to hearing. It’s no matter, really; perhaps the Sunshower is jealous of their mighty bronze guardian in comparison to her withering glass wall.

Her peace, delicately assembled and well maintained, holds fast to her through her story; there are ripples of her cold opinions in the mix of her words, to be true, but she is not as unkind as she might have been, and is honest for the most part. It is all a part of the act she has to play to make this friendship work, to align herself and Deimos as dark hearted fiends ruling over benevolent and peaceful purists and to maintain the tentative bond between World’s Edge and the Aurora Basin; what is most surprising about this act is that, while it is a ploy she holds in mind for the sake of her band of beautiful murderers, it is also one she has committed to for the soft hearts that lay among the thorns of her kin.

For Lena, Roland, Torleik… for them all she had opened the gates into their frosty home. For this, at least, she is thankful for the sweetness of the Queen, for the forgiving and noble heart of her feathered King; in the past few weeks since it has all become settled and confirmed, she has even seen a smile flashing across the lips of the Doctor, who for a long time had seemed lost in her sadness.

Cruel and unjust a woman as she is, she can see when the old laws wear to hard on her people; she has seen where the old laws will lead them.

She will not be Psyche, crownless and broken, cast out into the blustering snows.

She must be, for her son.

’And I’m not plain,’ concludes the Queen’s reply, and the Lady looks to her with a smile that says she knows otherwise, though within herself she admits that the painted woman would be quite the pristine example of a female if only she wore a crown of obsidian, or diamond; as she stood now, she was plain. Plain, ordinary; too full of hope and smiles to be much more than a pretty decoration for some charming and good looking man; to Illynx, there was no plainer than that. ”I’d have better luck counting grains of sand on a beach,” she replies to Kahlua’s inquiry as to whether or not she would truly attempt to wipe every piece of smut from the earth, sweeping the rest beneath her words as she continues, ”I am not so stubborn as my predecessors as to believe that we number enough to undo what the Gods allowed to fall into ruin with violence. I do what I can here, by providing a haven for my kin, upholding the old laws that disallow the mingling of species. In time, we will purify the world simply by remaining among ourselves.” She pauses, her smile gentle and supple on her lying face, the sound of Rikyn’s laughter meeting the silence as the scorpion darts between his legs in a mad mechanic flurry and nearly sends him toppling over as he attempts to follow its path with his nose.

”Not all here are as I am, which you know – I noticed a friendship between yourself and Lena back at the Edge,” she says this all without an air of snide disapproval or disgust, knowing that Kahlua must believe her, ”this friendship between our two herds is for my sisters and brothers such as she, who wither in the frost among all the dying trees that are myself and those who feel as I do. They lust for relationships, experiences they cannot have here and among only the crowned; those who ruled before me frowned upon their golden hearts with disdain. I look to them as great assets, for they can see Loorien as it is, rather than how some wish it to be.”

”There is strength in such light, is there not?” she asks, glancing back to her boy and wondering just how deep she should drag him into her pit, knowing she will likely take him all the way to the bottom, ”It gives depth to the darkness, and a gleam to the world.”

She watches the obvious changes that cross the Queen’s face as her words are spoken, drawing amusement as she always does over those who have little control over the bending of their features, unaware how much of themselves was given away without a price through such naïve trust that others will not use your heart against you. The Lady is used to such ripples of emotion across the face of the ordinary and mutated, however; her way of life is highly distasteful to them for more reasons than the most obvious extermination of their species. She hears as much when River Walker replies, her lips smiling sadly at the woman for she cannot understand why it is Illynx loves the solemn serenity of her mountain and the vision of her kin within it brings her so much fulfillment to a vain and shallow life such as her own.

They are similar, in so many ways, each walking along either side of the proverbial path with their thoughts surrounding themselves and what they could have, what they wanted, gleaming and beautiful and full of a pride that, at times, is questionable in its foundations. But Kahlua is kind in all the ways that Illynx is cruel, the Sunshower’s heart more golden and gleaming than the gilded bitch could lay claim to even in her second year of life.

”Our number is large, and far from lonely,” she says with her pitying smile still lingering on her face as she glances towards the Queen, ”I find little time to wander away to socialize elsewhere for too long, either way, but I have managed to make bonds with some outside the snow even after my rise to the throne. I’m sure you understand, being of a similar roll to your people as I am to mine, that my time is no longer my own as often as it used to be. If the mountain is lonely, it is not the way we live upon it that makes it so. It is my inability to answer the call of my wandering heart as often as I used to, to see those and that which I care for outside of its province.” Looking upon the benevolent ruler of the Edge, her eyes crease ever so slightly as she runs her golden gaze across the mare who watches her son and the metal scorpion his father had made for her, an almost seamless transition of her words into the mention of the Doctor and her equally soft heart when compared to Kahlua’s.

Still, it makes her smile to know that it was that same soft heart that had been the reason the bond was so easily made between the two herd lands that had, notoriously, been at one another’s throats since the Qian’s rise beneath the golden wings of Mirage. It was proof of her logic so coolly stated before, that women such as Lena and men such as Roland were essential parts of their whole, the sweetness needed to give light to the shadowy undertone of their leaders; it was a time, Illynx knew, for fear of the mountain to slip out of mind, and the game is seemingly going her way for the time.

She also smiles because she too owes her life to Lena, as do many. The healer was surely a matron among the mortals of Helovia, her song and Time imbued powers extended to any and all who needed her. There was something to be learned in that, Illynx was sure; she just couldn’t ever seem to spot the lesson, too broken and bitter her own heart.

Along with her smile is a nod, a gentle tip of her crown that reads, to the trained eye, that she shares such kind sentiments for the gentle Doctor and her kitsune.

What the Queen says next may have drawn offense from the Lady because it seems as if the woman assumes she neglects the kinder members of her fold, but it is enclosed in the ringing of a word that leaves her inner eyes glinting and savage as they look upon the playing field in which both white and black Queen are hand in hand.

Her smile blooms, glorious and sweet, beautiful and full of all the false happiness she can muster.

”I came to your door, did I not, my darling?” she replies with a gilded wink of her right eye, smile still playful and dancing on her pretty face with the corners slightly downtrodden at the mention that the Queen is to be leaving. Nodding in accordance to the words and turning to call for her son, his name rises sweetly from dark lips and he quickly abandons his game with the scorpion just as the metal creature does the same towards him to return to his master. ”It was my pleasure, Queen Kahlua,” she says in her own honey lacquered way, bowing her own head in return.

Glancing at the contraption and hearing the differentiation of its prior whirring to the devastating racket it’s making now, she comments on such as the Queen moves to lift her head with the robot on her poll. ”Be not a stranger, dear, you are welcome here as you please. Do come back by soon to meet with Ulrik,” she says, ”your little friend sounds creaky.” A giggle trails from her as Rikyn beams at the nice lady who let him play with her doodad, tail twitching in his happiness behind him with little notice paid by the child, enjoying the notion that his father had made the toy and that she’ll be back soon to have it fixed.

”Bye-bye, nice lady!” calls her boy as she walks away, and Illynx looks down at him with a thought to chide him for calling her by such an improper title and finding that he’s still blabbing his farewells, ”be nice to the toy!”

She rolls her eyes as she turns back into the vale, wondering if the Queen will return with whatever power she sought through the tale she’d requested, pondering what precisely it might be.