Zjarri could not always be with her.

For long periods of time, he would often be away. On "grown-up business" he would say, but she knew better. She knew the destruction and devastation he caused among the kingdoms, bringing war and death in his wake when there could be peace. He did not fancy the kingdom life for Yseulte, and so left her in the care of his beloved twin sister, the serene, violet-eyed Makenna in the deep of the desert among her grandmother's fighting warrior women. The White Twins were something to behold in Liridon, son and daughter of the powerful Fire Lord and his Firebird, both born pale and cold as the north, but with skin more scorching than the belly of a volcano. They were halves to make each other whole—Makenna's water to Zjarri's fire, her peace to his rage. As Zjarri wished, the fiery Donieta women raised Yseulte in the depths of their desert.

She smiles to herself before turning to see the stranger who approached her in the warm drizzle of afternoon rain. The sun still shone in the western half of the sky, hovering above the horizon line amid sheets of listless gray clouds, adding a bizarre sensation to the sweet spring rain. "Rain rot, you say?" There is a curious lilt to her voice, as if she is contemplating something. She tilts her head at a slight angle, closing her eyes briefly to feel the cool water bead her faces in sparkling droplets. "Where I am from, it never rains. I think I will chance the risk," Yseulte says simply, as if that is an acceptable reason for standing in the middle of a downpour. "Besides, I should greatly like to be ugly, anyway." Her voice purrs with vague amusement, especially at the thought of rain rot destroying her fine coat.

Though the light-hearted tones of her voice suggest humor and dry wit, the cold-eyed mare is quite serious. Beauty has only ever been a burden to Yseulte, and she wonders if the strangely marked mare identifies the same way, for she is quite an exotic beauty herself. Yseulte isn't blind--she sees the way the mare's eyes linger on her appearance, tracing her strange coloring, and contemplating and analyzing her with savage, glittering eyes. Curious. She has seen those eyes before, many, many miles away, in a place where it never rains. Eyes that are vibrant with life and blazing with wild hunger, but cold with purpose, discipline, and strength. The eyes of a warrior. Perhaps a fellow sister, even.

Interesting.

Yseulte returns the exotic mare's steadfast stare with a cool gaze of her own, very aware of the manner in which the stranger holds herself at her full height, stressing the difference in height between the two, however meager that difference might be. Finding excellent posture hardly threatening, Yseulte merely sweeps her tail against her hocks, and twitches an ear. "Aerwela." She offers the mare a crooked smile, a peace offering of sorts, for she had decided that she quite liked the mare's ferocious intensity. "And I am Yseulte."

Another joins their brief standoff, a pegasus stallion, and Yseulte can't decide if she is annoyed or glad of the distraction. She quickly settles on indifference, which in turn, is quickly overcome with childlike curiosity. For being thoroughly soaked through the feathers with rain, he is of an especially cheerful disposition, and she wonders absentmindedly if it is an uncomfortable sensation to have wet feathers. He keeps a gaping distance from them--not quite far enough to suggest fear, but farther than general respect requires. Wariness, she decides, and doesn't blame him for his extra precaution. Whispers of the north and its racist inhabitants spread like the wildfires her father once summoned with a single breath.

"Indeed. Nice weather we're having, isn't it?"

yseulte
apprentice craftsman of world's edge