It all comes down to a single moment,



Lady and boy venture to the Threshold, Rikyn leading the way, his small rear quarter bobbing ahead of her with his tail curiously bending with each step as if it is an extension of his joy and youth. She watches him carefully, having decided that, today, her son would do most of the talking; an assuagement of his skills, truly, she wanted to see if her work with the child in so far as teaching him the art of words had paid off, or if he showed any aptitude at all for the work of gathering the lost to her bosom.

She has her doubts; he is, after all, Ulrik’s son, and while it seems he has inherited much of his mother’s flash and shine, there is a chance that the social situation of gathering strangers who may soon become family will be too much for the boy. She has never seen her Engineer in this forest of welcome, and she must assume that there is a chance her child is the same man, deep beneath his desires to appease her.

But he’d been very happy to oblige her when she asked, enthused even that he had an actual job to do at only a few months old, his coat still downy and edged with pale guards, tiny cloven hooves pit patting against the Tallsun dried earth as he takes note of those wearing crowns, and those without; he understands very little of the laws of his home, but respects them.

Mostly because she has threatened him if he makes adopting lost hybrids a habit, and he wants to show her that Aithniel was merely a fluke of naivety, that he is a son both she and his sire could smile over proudly; he wants to prove to her that his Thistle Sister is worth more than his mother wants to see, and the only path he can see aside from the little snow and gold child proving her worth on her own, is through acts of his invention.

In his tiny, premature mind, he feels that being good at this will make mother forgive Aithniel her wings, the sins of her ancestors who had bred with birds and lost their rights to any earthly kingdom. It is not her fault, after all, that her family had made mistakes, and he, for all his pondering and headaches over the matter, cannot see why his mother hates her for that which she had no control over.

Illynx, of course, sees none of his thoughts, feels none of his hidden drive and motivation as they trot along through the wood; she only watches him watch the world go by him, continuing on past the figures that had acquired a gathering already even if it seemed the prospect was suitable, finding that Tallsun has brought, as usual, an influx of faces to the land.

Unlike Rikyn, who does not know enough to wonder such things, she gives each a glance that questions how long they will stay, to where they will go, if they, someday, may die in this land she has lived in for most of her life.

They’ve come almost to the very border of the wood that signifies the entrance into Helovia, and the Lady ponders telling her son to loop back around as she takes note of his notice of something, following his trajectory (slightly increased, for there! There is his first prize!) to a dark figure standing quite nonchalantly along the borders of one of the open areas that dapple the ancient wood.

”Helloooo,” calls her boy, drawing a smile to her lips that heightens the one already blooming upon recognition of a mare she had thought long gone and never to return. Her name, so long since its last use, evades her, but she does know that this is a face she had seen many times while the herd had been under the keep of her darling Empress. This is a kindred soul, one that is desperately needed in the snow, and her grin is predatory as she idles in after her child who has come to a bouncy halt before the black mare, his words flowing even as she stops as he hungrily runs his eyes up her savage horn in honest wonder at the variety between one unicorn family to another. ”I’m Rikyn, and this is my momma, the Gilded Blade. We live in the Aurora Basin up in those big mountains back over there,” he blabbers on cheerfully, golden eyes burning with his enthusiasm as he prattles on and points with his partially grown, gold tipped horn towards home, ”did you just get here?”

It all comes down to a single moment,



The boy almost wilts beneath the weight of the gaze that meets him, so unused to being put into the spotlight and unable to not notice that the woman is more interested in his mother than she is him. It generally works that way though, he’s taken note of – few appreciate the company of children in this world and it leaves him with a bitter feeling in his stomach that nearly extinguishes the smile on his face. Raised as a true prince, however, he attempts to maintain his façade of nonchalance, though his smile glimmers less brightly and his golden eyes are less focused on the nuances of the woman than they had been.

She is no different than mother, or the others.

She still smiles, however, and the boy feels his own returning to its former vivacity. While the black skinned woman talks, Rikyn hears a few things that he recalls from his lessons on the history of his home, including the name of his aunt – he had never met her. As far as he was concerned until this point, the Empress had been an illusion his momma held inside her head, a ghost of herself that was somehow better than she was. It was the only explanation as to why an adult would fawn over another so excessively, that she felt the other woman could offer more than she could, but Rikyn didn’t see the sense in it all. Psyche had lost her home. His mother still ruled it.

Why admire someone who was obviously weaker than herself?

He glances over to his mother as Chernobyl does, seeing the smile of gleeful recognition that always races across her face at the mention of her sister, a subtle nod of approval given to the dark mare as her son returns his features to continue the task his mother has given him. "There are other places to go," he says, his smile gaining a deviousness that nearly makes his dam swoon at the cuteness of it all, "but none as worthy as the Aurora Basin, unless you like living in ordinary forests or blazing deserts." His words include no hint of the racism that his mother attempts to teach him, forgotten under the comforting bond he held with Aithniel, a girl who broke all the rules his mother wanted to teach him. As time passed, he understood more and more why his dam had not wanted the girl. It had ruined her lessons with her only true son.

"I am Rikyn," he says, still smiles and youthful brightness, his dam smiling coyly in the outskirts as she nods hello in accordance to the mare’s name. Chernobyl, yes, that is what she had been called – and a scholar! Zikar-Sin would be pleased to know he had disciples to guide. "Let it be so!" he exclaims as the woman makes clear that they are going to go home together, the boy filling to the brim with pride that he had successfully completed the task his mother had given him and his mother quietly sighing to herself that he had been so fortunate as to find one of their own in the borders.

”The Lady Psyche is no longer upon the mountain,” Illynx explains as they trot along, her son quietly humming to himself as he moves alongside them and listens to the tale he’s heard at least seven times, ”nor is the Frostheart. They departed several years past, though both are well as I know, simply leading their own paths. Psyche is still a dear friend of the Basin, of course, but I have taken her former position and lead alongside Deimos, the Reaper.” Occasionally glancing over with bright smiles lacing her lips, she further elaborates on what might have changed since Chernobyl last walked upon the proud snows of the north. ”Our Haruspex is the wild eyed Zikar-Sin, if you are still interested in such a path,” she explains, ”the old man who kept it during your era on the mountain is long since gone, and few still hold the ranks they once did. D’Artagnan is perhaps the only who remains as he always was.”