The girl's body wanted to jump at the sound of Volterra's voice, but Iso bayed it to remain still. Even so, a cold and fearful chill coursed through her system, causing her guts to twist and her heart to hammer unsteadily.

He knows.

If she were going to tell her name to anyone, it would have been him. But he never asked, and she never told - and that unspoken grace that he offered her was one of the things that so drew her to him, and kept her coming around when he was near. But now? Now he knew her secret. He held her most prized possession in his mind where it could never be lost. She felt naked, revealed somehow. Even as her stoic expression turned towards the mammoth colt, inside she was imagining ways of striking her Father down and tearing his tongue from his lips. She had no other secrets of this magnitude that he could ruin, and yet in this one instance, revenge felt like it could be sweet. 

Kis hollo

And then her rage melted away. Something in Isopia's golden gaze softened for just a moment; a twinkling of gratitude in the depths of her golden eyes. In that moment, she couldn't have loved him more - if indeed it was love that she felt for him and not some sickness of the mind and body. There were no words that her mind could conjure to express what it was she felt, and the girl had to fight to keep her knees from buckling, and from allowing herself to sink into the muscular mass of his onyx shoulder. If anything proved the strength of mortals, Isopia was sure it was this. Her Father, a pillar of all that was strong and infallible had proven himself to be nothing more than an absent and absented-minded presence in her life. And yet Volterra, born from the loins of those who imparted no real scars upon history, has usurped him. That thought appealed to her on so many levels. 

"Maybe Verzes can assist with that." She whispers in agreement, her mind as well fleeing to their first meeting, when Volterra was the one with the egg. The symmetry - and his presence - made her smile, and she might have said more if not for--

Iso! I found you!

That voice ... the girl hadn't heard it for what seemed like years, and although her body has continued growing as if it had been years, she knew it had not. The golden-eyed girl's heart winced with pain as she looked left, already knowing what bright and youthful face she would see. Zero her heart whispered, half expected to see Zahra and her ragtag group of companions alongside him. Have you made her more gifts she thought bitterly, but quickly the smile she forced became genuine. Zero had been the first to understand and accept her - the first to question the world with her. Together they had played as she had never played with anyone. They had adventured, wondered together, and discovered whales as well as her name. The heart she had when she was younger of mind and much younger of body, would always belong to him, no matter how it pained her now to admit it. He held a place in her life that she was sure she did not hold in his.

But such was life. 

"Maybe I found you." She teased with a whisper and a half-smile. "I think there will be a battle. The last three openings have always been followed by an altercation. Although my Father believes that he has brokered a deal, I am not so confident. Why should diplomacy matter now that this is the fourth attempt?" She shook her head, turning her death-marked skull towards where her Father stood. 

This isn't over yet. She concluded grimly.