It was difficult for Elif to contemplate the end of the world.

It wasn’t that she was a sensible girl - no one who knew her could accuse her of that. It was more that she wasn’t fanciful, having been taught from a young age the brutal realities of life in the desert. While perhaps this should mean she was well-used to contemplating destruction, instead she more assumed life would continue as it always had. The desert was hot. Fall came with long, hard rains. The wheel turned.

But now all the strange things in the world were beginning to live outside the girl’s head. Mazes built from magic, gods who made jokes with queens and drove winter out of the court of the sun. And then Raum, and now the volcano. It was too much for her.

And so she’d fled. Oh, her heart was still on the beach with all that throng of horses, and she knew she would join them soon, but Elif needed something safe, something known. Without a thought her wings carried her swift as morning to the oasis, and the wind buoyed her, and she didn’t think of the way the whip coiled at her side could do nothing against a natural disaster because she didn’t think at all.

That is why she was almost upon the figure before she noticed him.

Elif’s gaze had been on the water, staring like a blue eye up at the mirror of the sky above, and not on who stood at the edge of it. She was descending, the wind a great noise in her ears, her eyes stinging with the cold air and bright glare of the water. It was only a flash of gold that caught her eye, and as soon as she realized what that fan of wings meant Elif threw out her own. As she drew in a sharp breath her small magic pushed the wind up, up to stop her.

She made far from a graceful landing a few yards away from him, landing hard on her hind hooves like a bronco after a kick of particular gusto. The beat of her wings stirred up all the sand and winter-withered grass and Elif had to bite back a sneeze.

Worst of all was how, for a long moment after, she could only gape like a fish at the stranger.

At last she managed to work her expression into something less mortifying. No part of him snagged her first - not the striking gold against his dark skin, not the double wings she had only ever seen on Caine, not his tremendous size. The whole of him, and the near shock of nearly landing on top of him, hit her like a punch.

Yet Elif did not reel. She eyed him with her green eyes spring-bright, and then she shook like a dog and met his eye.

“Nice day,” she said.

 

“Do not be afraid to bare your teeth -”

His measured response took her by surprise; judging by the looks of him (all that bright gold) and the fact he stood at the edge of her country’s oasis (surely everyone knew now was not the time for a jaunt to Solterra) had her assuming he was of the sun court.

But neither his accent nor his politeness marked him as a native. After his reply the girl’s expression softened, and she settled her wings against her sides almost abashedly. Still, she wandered no nearer - her natural distrust was bred into her for a reason, and the reason was that almost everything in Solterra might bite if given the chance.

“I wouldn’t say you’re intruding,” she answered, “but our king might.” She bit out the word hard, king, throwing it away from her mouth like rotten fruit, but did not elaborate. Elif’s inborn pride in her country bordered on conceit, and she assumed he knew of Raum and the toppling of Solterra’s fragile order of peace. The thought - always just an itch away - made her stiffen and twist her ears like an anxious racehorse near the gate.

It was poor timing, again. For as the thought of Raum flushed her with an anger and fear that made her want to click her teeth, the enormous stranger was dropping into a bow. Now the lithe pegasus had to bite back a surprised laugh; despite growing up among the lesser ring of nobles in Solterra, most of the bows she’d come across had been in story-books. Certainly she did not expect one here, the two of them alone, and her looking as disheveled as a post-storm wildcat.

“Call me Elif,” she told him, and after a moment angled her slim muzzle down in a semblance of a bow. “It’s nice to meet you, Sol, but now is not the best time to explore the Day Court. Unless you think you could learn much as a statue.” Though she’d said it drily, the girl felt a lance of guilt sear her when she thought of the damage their silver king had already wrought - his monster had turned some poor sailors to stone, and it was not something to be flip about.

To distract from her guilt the pegasus stepped alongside him, bent her head down to the water and drank. The water was a cool balm down her throat, but she did not close her eyes to enjoy it - they were wary, watchful for movement, and one ear remained trained on Sol. She would not put it past Raum to post guards at the Oasis, restricting citizens from drinking; nor would she put it past a strange, no matter how seemingly chivalrous, to try and get a jump on her.

But despite her wariness, Elif was not afraid. She was small, and she was quick, and the wind was always on her side.
 

“Do not be afraid to bare your teeth -”

She was mollified, a little, by his openness in revealing how new he was, and how ignorant. Many she knew would be loathe to divulge such information, even if it wouldn’t be taken as weakness - the pegasus’s people were a proud race (often to a fault) and admitting something as simple as being new would be harder for some than swallowing a burning coal.

Elif regarded him with her spring-green eyes, and then shook her head. The short bristle of her mane still gave her the appearance of an angry housecat, and the line of her mouth did nothing to dispel it; the memory of standing before the silver king on his ill-won throne made her want to shiver or to spit. “He challenged our queen, and killed her, and now he rules with cruelty and disregard. It would please him to watch us wither and die.” For that reason alone - for the grim joy of refusing his wishes - Elif promised herself that she would live. And not only live, but thrive, and help Raum’s stone rule shatter.

It is lucky that she is distracted enough not to notice the way he glanced at her. Not for a long time (not since her brother had died) had anyone concerned themselves with wanting to protect her, and it had been even longer yet since she would willingly allow it. Instead, she didn’t look his way again until the big stallion was eyeing the oasis around them. “That’s putting it mildly.” Her voice was still serious, hard-edged as the canyons beyond them, but even so she wanted to laugh. Elif swallowed the impulse.

His question caught her off guard in its nonchalance; now when she studied him, she tried to guess whether he was a mighty warrior or only an overconfident fool. The girl decided it could be either. He was handsome, she supposed, pretty in the way that some foolish boys were - but he was also so big. Well, perhaps it was lucky for him that she was here to provide a word of warning.

“The best thing to do,” she said, relaxing a little beneath the shade of the palms, “would be to leave the way you came, and quickly.” She cast a look at him, brow raised, wondering whether he would believe her at all, and then she sighed and shrugged, shuffling her wings against her sides. “But if you are determined to stay, and find yourself within sight of his basilisk, don’t meet it’s eye. Where’d you come from, anyway? There are much…friendlier…courts in Novus.”

“Do not be afraid to bare your teeth -”

When he first responded, a laugh bubbled up in her throat and caught there, like a dandelion seed or a blocked well, something half-scoffing, half-frantic. Indeed, she might have said (but dryly), were she a more restrained sort of girl. Instead she tossed her head, and scuffed the earth with a black hoof, and tried not to roll her eyes. “Raum knows that,” she said. “It is why he’s doing the opposite.” The longer she stood here, telling him about the dictator who ruled them (far more cruelly than Zolin had, for Zolin had been foolish and selfish, and Raum was clever and cold and mad) the more ridiculous it seemed.

Why not fly away, then, back to the island, back to the mystery, and leave her sunburned, bleach-boned homeland behind? Oh, because she was of the sand and the canyons, and sunlight ran through her veins, and she was too proud to ever run away.

Her spring-green eyes caught him when Sol spoke again, and though they did not narrow her dark mouth turned down at the corners. Too often had she heard similar words directed at her, and she wondered now how and if he already knew her propensity for rashness. “I suppose,” she said sourly, the way she might have answered one of the older nobles before things had fallen into chaos.

It was easier, when the conversation shifted onto him. Easier to bend her head and drink again, and forget for a moment that this was one of the last water-sources not under guard in the desert (at least for now), or that smoke was billowing from a volcano off shore, or that the gods might return again, angrier than the last time. Hearing about other worlds - and himself - made her curious, and when she lifted her dripping muzzle again she no longer felt like bristling like a cat.

Now when she eyed him, she tried to imagine him violent. It wasn’t hard - he was so big - but she could sense no heat in his golden eyes now. “You should be at home here, then,” she said, and only felt a little guilty for it. When he said he was with Dawn, though, she really did laugh. “Some Solterrans call Dawn courters flower-pickers.” But not her, not anymore - the thought of Delumine only made her think of Mateo, now, and what he’d told her of his own court’s troubles. “But I hear they have a murderer of their own.” Gone was her laughter, and her shroud of arrogance - there was something strangely chilling, at the thought that nowhere in Novus might be safe and easy and good.



“Do not be afraid to bare your teeth -”

She had no response for his perhaps, other than a fierce flash of her green eyes and the press of her lips into a firm dark line. It was all she could do to keep her tail from twitching behind her like an irritated sand-cat, or from uncoiling the whip at her side just to run her touch along and and curl it again, like drawing a blade to remind yourself it was there.

Of course it was long past time for someone to oust Raum - the problem was how. And she was uninterested in getting into those intricacies with this oversized and overconfident stranger.

But now that Raum has been brought up, the thought of him troubles her like a burr or a horsefly; now she has that itch below her skin, that barb in her mind. It was too easy to remember standing before him, pleading for mercy for her people, and being met with a stare cold enough to burn. It was a better stare than the one from his basilisk companion, at least.

Nor did she respond to his next statement, least of all his wink. Elif had always been a bit of a prickly girl, preferring fists to kisses and winks, and she is also unaccustomed to anything that could be construed as flirting. Few had tried it with such a standard-looking tom-girl, and those that did were swiftly met with a kick or a nip and moved on to more willing pastures. Still, it didn’t feel right to talk - much less joke - of violence here. Not with a spectre of a dread king over her shoulder, and an eruption to the east.

Not until he asked about her Dawn Court news did she settle, a little, though her gaze on him was still less than soft. “Not that I’ve heard,” she said, and shrugged stiffly. “Maybe you can help.” The last was half placating peace-offering, and half wondering if he’d agree and rush away, leaving her to her thoughts and the oasis.

Unlikely.

“I’d better go,” she announced then, and swallowed against the scarlet alaja that sat snug around her throat. She didn’t really feel like flying back to the coast yet, or the heart of the court - but she was growing more prickly under each look he gave her, and didn’t care for being guessed at. “Be careful, Sol Bestiam. May Solis light your way.” The customary Solterran goodbye she added on a whim, hoping that if he thought her overtly religious he might pester her less (more proof of her ignorance regarding flirtatious men).

But she didn’t give him much of an opportunity anyway - the cool of water on her throat had grounded her enough, at least, to go back and face the potential end of the world, the threat on the horizon. And so with barely a glance back at him (and a narrow-eyed one, at that) she took a few lunging strides and pitched herself into the air again, her wings sweeping up clouds of sand and making ripples on the water, and took back to the skies.

Elif did not feel as bad as she had at the beginning for nearly landing on him, despite his apparent harmlessness. Indeed, she could probably be convinced to do it again.


“Do not be afraid to bare your teeth -”


@Sol Bestiam wrapping for now but they run across each other again soon! (and maybe she'll be less crabby heh)