That the white mare knows her darling Empress leaves the golden streaked woman with a curious expression marring her kind and demure mask that covers the bright plunge of pain that took her upon hearing that name; there is a flicker of thought behind both the women’s eyes as she extends her own name and title, a pretty one that makes the Lady wonder as to why she has been cast away, and from whom. It seems a tender subject to broach as soon as they have met, however, and the woman has delicately cast words beyond her title to obscure the topic behind a slight joke. Illynx crinkles her own mouth into a smile at the humor behind it, enjoying the way that the name of Forsaken bends with the lack of belonging in this place, as if they were the same color or made the same sound.

That she does not know the woman and the woman knows someone so dear to her casts a gleaming allure about the ivory and crimson unicorn that is perhaps a dangerous thing to have when placed before the Lady of the Basin; but there is no malevolence towards her, even though she has bonded to a creature that suggests her blood is unclean, for despite the failings of her heritage, she was born whole and perfect into the world. Ophelia could not have shook or slowed the bindings of fate which had brought her the wyvern, and Illynx could not claim to understand what the Lord of Time had put into play when he had graced them with one another – she only knew that it was, and softly accepted it within herself. "You’re aunt, hmm?" she muses, trailing her words together to connect all she had said into one reply, "my darling friend would not be so welcome here, either, I do not think."

Her lips are curled into a humored smile that reflects into her golden eyes, twinkling faintly as she turns them away from Ophelia to sing her song.

As the lyrics fall from her, she watches what occurs next with heady interest, from the way that the Forsaken stills as if a ghost has presented itself when a crystalline mare emerges from the outskirts, her heart a red pulse with her veins within the clear outlines of her body. This one, too, wears a horn, and the Lady feels herself salivate even as she sings her melody out into the strange night, out to the ring of light burning in the dark sky above.

Are they falling in love? asks a small voice in the back of her mind, and her sweet soprano nearly falters at the faded and jammed away memory brought back to life by her song and the gentle waft of the Moon’s presence surrounding them in her and her brother’s night of tender embrace.

No, comes another voice, a male one, a face drifting up into her thoughts that leaves her final notes tinged with the deep pain her soul feels when she sees him, so very big in comparison to herself, they are only dancing. And then they had danced, too.

”He said your name while we lay there.”

Had he? She didn’t know. She hadn’t come until the time for words had passed, and all that was left was that pit in her heart and the dark flames that reached out for the ones who had put it there.

She realizes that it was the glass speaking to Ophelia not long after the first tear breaks her usually flawless exterior, too many pains remembered to rapidly to beat off the swelling of sorrow that had held her for a time. She closes her eyes as if she is only collecting her breath, as if she is only listening; but inside, she hears the ice encasing her heart crack every so slightly, shifting.

Kyst comes, as if she can hear it from wherever she was with Rikyn. Maybe she can, the Lady thinks, feeling the swell of concern and anger coming in the form of a running, winged cat with a curved beak and bird’s limbs rather than forepaws. Pausing alongside her bonded for long enough to take in her scent and the surroundings, she brushes against the woman’s golden legs to ease her hearts quandary, figuring that it was no one here’s fault that her master was hurting so deeply.

She has never felt these emotions, at least not so deeply; sometimes they cross her like a quick, sudden rain and are gone again, but she does not cry. Worry lines the figure of the griffon as she clambers up to the mare’s shoulder, the sharpness of her talons rousing the Lady from her sodden state and back into the present, where the crystal mare is attempting to lure Ophelia away in search of some mysterious man.

”You speak of Mauja.”

Instantly, her flustered agitations towards the man and equally strange sensations of allegiance rose, trained into her heart from her years in his service; there was a coldness to the way Ophelia said his name that leant Illynx to believe that all women felt this way of him. A sliver of love wrapped in thick, impenetrable ice, ice he had likely laid there. Frostheart indeed, she thinks to herself with a silent mental scoff that adds a devious curve to her lips, her tears forgotten beneath a name.

Her ears slip back as the damsel of glass leaves and Ophelia stays, wondering what it is he owes this woman – she can name some of the things he owes others. Her head shakes slowly back and forth in good, mocking humor of the man, her voice still tinged with the frail lace of sorrow though she does her best to cover it with her smiles and joking words. "Time has his hands full healing what Mauja has broken," she says bluntly with some light chuckling, "you may be waiting some time."

There was a river once,
with many round stones
enchanted by shallow hopes
of embracing the ocean;
water is peculiar this way,
how its life is a line
that cannot bend or change
without the approval of its bed.