Private a precipice so delicately posed;

Shrike would be at a loss to give voice to her gratitude for this reunion.

She has never been a creature of words, but of deeds and feelings. So she does not think grateful or glad, does not even think of joy. She knows only that her heart had been an empty desert, with moaning winds that kicked sand over any path that might have been – and now it was full. Now the skies were wide and dusky blue and the first stars were appearing, one of them ever brighter than the rest, and that was the one she would always follow.

It is not a safe thing, this star she follows. It is a killing star. But it guides her home nonetheless.

Gods and mortals and monsters – her smile is a grim thing as she looks to her sister, but there is an eagerness there in the tightening around her eyes. What she sees when Calliope looks to the red stallion, what she might think of it – still she gives no sign.

But she relaxes when the black unicorn goes to pacing again, such familiar steps no matter how strange the soil. Her gaze follows her sister, but everything else of her is still, save for the way her mane and tail shivers and twists in the wind from up the mountain. Silently she marks each new scar, new roads cut into a map she’d had memorized.

Dragons and walls, Calliope says, and almost the paint’s lip lifts in a snarl. How many stories went thus into their final chapter? Still she says nothing at the mention of the Dusk Court; she had never drawn others like the unicorn. Her loyalty, any softness she might possess, was reserved for one only.

At last she nods, and echoes that feral smile like a reflection. “Very well,” she says, and falls in just behind Calliope. She flicks an ear at Raymond and watches him take his leave, then shifts her gaze back to the unicorn.

“It is good to see not much has changed,” she says softly, and if there is an but, well, it was only to be expected. The world did not stop turning just because you died.

get your war paint on
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