With relentless waves of cold that pound and bite into her skin like the talons of some deeply wrathful and unseen beast, she is stained with the color of North. Her rust-brindled eyes fight to rid themselves of the toes of invasive snow dancers as her guide leads her ever onward, and though she dares not voice it, her confidence in this oh-so-selective Basin and its women soldiers fades with every cunning whisper of the frost-speckled wind that whistles though her skull, every shiver that devours her spine of which was untouchable in her humid southern lands of a time now buried, and she yearns to replace the unfamiliar numbness at her ankles with the warmth of the sand and sun of what once was. Her skin is red beneath the thin coat of chocolate wire that adorns her, and the white that paints her hind legs blends seamlessly with the wetness on the ground with each bitter slice, and when she looks to Déodat and the crimson fire that he so breathtakingly emanates in the small and graceless space they share, there is no beauty on her face, for she follows him now only because of the fact that he is worth following.

There is no rest for the lovers of man.

She will nod for his sake as he speaks of his lands, of his Gods and of the lesser of his country, but her ear is only half-turned. She vaguely catches him dabble into the dragon-pegasi of some desert or other, and she thinks to herself how foolish it is for the winged to believe themselves the same caliber as the horned as to reserve a corner of the world for themselves, as if they had something to protect, something cable of being sullied by the ignorant masses. For a while after his last hasty breath he is overtaken by silence; something that the gladiatrix readily appreciates, and she stretches out her neck from its oblatory coil as if the weight of his superior word had concentrated its presence upon her crown, and her curiosity moves with more freedom.

It is not until he speaks of the Basin's protectors that she returns to tedious reality's dreary looking-glass, and looks up at what could only be what he means to call her attention to in polite and waning awe. They are peculiar statues, beautifully crafted into the streamlined likeness of this planet's mightiest, perhaps even automatons, if she were to see them show any sign of moving, but for the moment here they stand; large and graceful guardians, embodiments perhaps of what secluded creatures lay in waiting just beyond, and even though she highly doubts they could respond, she feels the need to greet them, thank them, as she passes into the home of Basiners they so coveted. "Your people are talented," she comments after a time, peering about in hopes to catch some movement in response to his call.

I wonder what else it is that they can do.