The sentinels were a ruddy, red orange in the light of the falling Sun, the first stars blooming in the violet tails of the sky and a quiet row of clouds clinging to the upper peaks of the mountain; the Lady and her newest trinket arrive beneath the splendorous light, Kyst dozing along the spine of her bonded and the Gilded Blade chattering away at the woman about anything they passed that seemed of worth to mention and many other things that mattered very little at all.

As she was with most she brought home, the golden one is anxious to see the stranger’s reaction to the Sentinels, the keystone of the new empire that she sought to build on the foot stones that her sister had laid out for her. They were a symbol of strength, of brilliance blended with innovation, of her own dark heart and the way it had bound itself to the man who had molded the metal to create the only thing in her life that had ever been brought into fruition whole, and perfect.

That she was already breaking her little Rikyn went unnoticed; she was far too enamored with how much she loved him and the way it made her feel important to be concerned with how her parenting affected him. Either way, the boy was invisible until the Time Lord deemed him worthy of being someone again, having asked for the weirdest magic she had ever heard of and receiving an equally ludicrous punishment. Her problems now of course made sense; she rarely made bad deals, after all, and it was fair to forfeit power for the gain of more.

She missed both her son and her magic desperately.

At least, she thinks with a smile as Kyst rouses with a sleepy stretch and long, yawning mew, still has her griffon.

Perhaps the sadness that she dwells in flickers momentarily on her face as she turns and reapplies her mask, a smile slipping over her lips as she pivots around to stand framed in the full beauty of the Basin at dusk. The wind is chilly, but not so cold as it will be in a month or so, the summer having stretched long into the autumn to keep the air warmer than it should have been, fluctuating from freezes to near humidity over the past week and what Illynx suspects will be a week or so more.

The snow is crisp beneath her hooves, a background sound to the prettiness of her voice as she gives her official welcome. "And this is it," she says with a smile and genial tilt of her crown, gesturing around her at the prettiness of her home.

@[Grimmrot]

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.

The muttering of the cold crafter that walks behind the golden lady is not missed, rather dismissed; most who are not of the snow meet it with much hesitancy, not yet having been exposed to the warmer haven that the Basin provided with its tall stone walls that blotted out the wind and the light snows that fell in the cusped valley. Compared to the rest of the looming peaks about them, the Aurora Basin was subtle in her winter garb, where as the Steppe stood over (at times) ten feet of snow and housed winds sharp enough to topple grown men from near precipices, and if one went so far as to compare the mountain haven to the ice fields, they would find the Basin to be an oasis among in hospitable conditions.

Here, the wind is still high and cold, swift and rippling, but it does not force their paths to sway or their skin to chafe upon impact; its uncomfortable for a southerner, she imagines, because she was once acclimated to warmer temperatures and remembers well following her beloved Empress and the Frostheart from the lost wood of her childhood north into the snows, and she had hated the mountain then with her sheer velvets and weak spirit, yet to be tempered by the ice and stone, because it made her shiver and feel smaller than she was meant to be, because it was not the home she had known her entire life until then.

But it was her fortress, now, tall and proud as the wound the snaking path upwards and still as great as she stood in the threshold, a castle worthy of a queen such as herself and the people that she kept beneath her watchful eyes.

As she turns to appraise the mare as she lays eyes upon the Basin for the first time, a smile upturns her dark lips as she notes the frost and snow that clings to the woman, she herself skilled in keeping her breath and face moving in the smallest of ways to disallow the water to freeze in such a manner on her own pretty mask. She nearly giggles as a wind strikes the dark pelted dame and she visibly winces from its cool touch, not yet the bitter strikes known for the winter months.

A kinder woman would invite the mare further in, perhaps even so far as the springs to warm her, but Illynx figures she will have to grow accustomed to the cold and the more open space here at the fore of the land will serve well to test her resilience.

It seems thoughts of cold are forgotten when the great bronze constructs are seen, the Lady watching with silent approval and a delicate nod of her head at the complement supplied to the visage she had imagined and that her darling Engineer had brought to life. Like many who see them, she has questions – but hers are far more specific and greater in number than some, which Illynx suspects is due to her profession of looking at such things and gleaning their value. It is a curious thought that flickers fleeting in her mind as to how much her sentinels are worth; surely more than most things, for how many objects can live?

"They are guardians, though only one functions at this time," she says simply, feminine voice full of pride and carrying over the rush of wind that bristles through from time to time, "they were constructed by Ulrik the Engineer, who also works in cloth. It’s a wonder he’s not here, now." Pointing with a golden horn to a pile of wires, metals, bags and gemstones strewn across the earth before the partially finished sentinel (the bits that had covered the ground before the first of the brothers to rise already used in the composition of his sibling or snatched up by eager collectors of shining things), the marks that he was never very far from his tasks. "He should be back by at some point today, if you wish to wait for him here."

Her previous offers are brought up once more, forgotten in the tour that had accompanied the long walk north and remembered here and now. She nods again as commerce is mentioned, her smile still in place. "I am sure they would welcome your services," she says with a light laugh in good humor at the less than social nature of their two most prominent crafters, "neither of our talents are known for their social endeavors."

Glancing back behind her at the tent posts standing erect in the distance, a thought crosses her as to where Ulrik might be, her strange mind clicking together facts and theories until an idea strikes her and her golden eyes return to the mare she’d salvaged from a ravine. "Future telling, you say?" she ruminates aloud, the sweet sound of her voice low and ponderous, "we are planning a festival for the end of the season, to honor our God of Time and the strength of our people. I think the God of the mountain would delight in such a talent."

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.

That the conversation lingers on the topic of her most favorite things is something that leaves the smile glowing and warm on the mask of the cold hearted Lady, her eyes watching Grimmrot but equally focused on the bronze contraption that towers over them, their flicker as they catch they light moving from one subject to the other obvious and unhidden.

In comparison, most mortals were ugly when appraised alongside the metal behemoth – she’d much rather look at the machine, in all honesty, but she does know enough to understand that eye contact is a simple part of conversation that simply has to be in place lest the subject feel ignored. It helps that this particular mare has offered enough talents and skills to the woman to satisfy even the most gluttonous of rulers – and so she earns that many more long lived glances from the Lady of the mountain.

"He is mute, without a mind of his own," she replies, her smile gaining a devious light as she thinks of those who are capable of wielding such a puppet of massacre, "simply metal programmed to react to certain stimuli. He’s quite the weapon when danger comes, but a poor conversationalist to be sure." Her laughter is tinkling and light, good humor found in the thought that the metal thing could speak or be much more than a hunk of metals designed to answer the summons of its master. Her gaze flits over to the half finished beast, searching for Ulrik, the comfort that rises in her heart at the visage of him, but he is off doing whatever it is a madman does when he is not working.

She shivers again, and the faintest darkening of the Lady’s eyes shows her concern for such things; it is a hard season for arrivals to come to the snow, to be sure, and the promise of a hard winter settles in the recesses of her thoughts, a warning that surely will come to play once the frigid winds of Frostfall start blowing hard and swift. For now, the hot springs and their caverns will suffice to shield them from the cold, and it is with some measure of concern for the newest member of the herd that she turns herself inwards, towards the path that would lead them to the balmy waters that were born from some fiery heart within the mountain itself.

The greed of the woman reveals itself again – for she surely does know how to read bones and scattered leaves, but wants the items to be given to her first. The Lady simply smiles.

She knows how deeply desire can run, how long those fingers of gluttony can stretch. Perhaps she will appease the dark one spared from a ravine, if only to earn herself that much more praise in the eyes of her God.

Selfishness is a common trait among those who walk the snow and ice.

"Bones are simple enough to come by, seeing as most living things wear them," she replies, nodding her head in agreement, "basins less so. I will be sure to relay the information to our gatherers, of course, to keep their eyes open for a stone or bit of wood that will suffice."

The words are concluded with a nod, gentle, though her eyes are harder than the gesture leads one to believe her heart to be and her mind works away at the subject; if the mare winds up being a wasted time and effort, Illynx has ways to regain the time and energy she has lost on her.

She has quite the assemblage of assassins, brutes, and thieves. Such a petty gypsy would be easy to remove from her playing field.

"Come," she says as the conversation turns to the cold, taking long strides in towards the heart of the land and pointing with her horn ahead towards their warm destination, "there are warmer places to discuss your new life here."

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.