Red painted the desert a bloody hue as the sun began its slow descent behind the Veneror peak filling the sky with the same colour of war. The evening steadily approached and with it came the promise of a respite from the heated gaze of Solis’ eye. Though Novus was gripped between the icy claws of winter, Soltera remained a land of fiery colours and suffocating heat. Even now, with the worst of the day over, the air still clung to any creature that wandered, still close and heavy and warm.

Sobec had chosen this time of day specifically to traverse the perilous deserts of Solterra, the dunes and canyons that had once been her home. Though the main city had changed whilst the Arete were held captive by time- the buildings developing, the faces changing- the desert remained the same. It was as though it too had been kept in the time cage, frozen in its state, never changing, never aging. Even before the catacombs, before Sobec had joined the Arete she’d never taken the time to wander the sands of her home, to reminisce. Her youth seemed like a life time ago, and in some sense it was, yet she walked the edges of the Elatus canyon without even looking, her hooves taking her of their own accord.

There was nothing left of the Sivalu, not a whisper on the wind or a fleck of fur in the sand. It was almost as though they’d never existed at all, the Hisada had wiped them out so thoroughly. Sobec was the last of them, as far as she knew, one of the few Solterans who had been raised in the relentless desert. Rarely did the survivor allow herself to be encumbered by such feelings, to allow her past to drag her back, stop her from moving forward. But that evening, as the sun went down on a dying day in a world that had changed whilst she’d stayed the same, Sobec allowed the threads of her soul to slowly unravel.

There was some comfort in a desert that barely changed, as though the gold-painted woman could close her eyes and pretend she was back home, that her tribe yet lived and her life had not been torn to pieces. But alas, as the wind drew empty scents across her nares, bereft of the equine aroma, it was all too clear that things had changed.

Alone now, far from the eyes of the Solteran court, the eyes of horses who did not know her, Sobec could allow the pain her heart to beat freely. Terrible and heavy the weight of her burdens pressed down, suffocating. A cry, a mournful, lost howl, tried to crawl from her throat, to split the silence with agonised abandon. She wanted to scream to Solis, who’s every watchful gaze was now masked by the forthcoming shadows of night. How could he let this happen, how could he let his most faithful servants be chained by time, kept static in the shadows while the world moved on around them. Perhaps they had failed him- the bitter thought permeated the angered haze of her mind. Perhaps she had failed him. After all she had found out about Zachariah’s plan, she had tried to stop it so many times yet each attempt ended in death. Should she have tried more? Should she have continued on and on, relived the day again and again even if it meant taking her own life to restart? The guilt is sour on her tongue and Sobec found herself wishing once more that she had died with her family, that she had been cut down by the Hisada like the rest of her tribe. But alas death was not the same steal trap for her. There were no pearly gates, no road to Solis’ side for her.

Sobec felt tears, angry and burning, mournful and inevitable, fill her gaze. But she blinked them away irritably as a soft silver glow interrupted the red painting the sand. Amidst the dying sun and the world painted in red it was not difficult to spot the oncoming woman. Though ebony, like she was crafted from the very shadows themselves, she was emblazoned with silver light, glowing brighter even than the ruddy hued dusked. A small, quiet sigh escaped Sobec’s lips before the gleaming woman reached her- she had not come to the far reaches of the desert for company. When she screamed to the sky, her voice both a prayer and a curse to the god she’d pledged her life for, it would be ancient and feral and she would do it alone with no one to witness her weakness. Hoping she might deter the stranger from conversation, Sobec turned her back and continued on her way, her tears all but forgotten.

Her avoidance mattered not it seemed, for the ebon mare approached her, casting a side glance across Sobec’s painted formed. The foreteller watched that gaze, feral and predatory, with frustration. She knew that kind of look, predacious and dangerous and toxically alluring. That was the way she looked before she took a life, her smile too greedy, her eyes too wild. But it was enthralling, some small part of Sobec deigned to admit, as she cast her own two-toned glance across the shadowy woman. Some of that anger, that guilt wormed its way into her gaze as feral aggression, the desert cat prowling beneath her skin. Since emerging from the Catacombs, she’d felt only loss, confusion, fear and anger. It had been so long since she felt danger, dangerous. Sobec tasted the woman’s scent; she smelt of salt and stars and not of Soltera (besides the traces of sand upon her dark hooves). Or at least not of the Soltera that Sobec had known- things were so different now perhaps she was a daughter of Solis.

“I was born in these deserts, I know what lies within them.” Her voice is a soft hiss, empty yet full at the same time. She left the woman talk, leaving a silence hanging in the air following her words. For a moment the Arete assassin considered them, considered the temptation to be free of her pain for a night. But… “I came for the silence, and for the solitude,” she added at last, wanting to turn her gaze away to tear her eyes from the starlit woman and continue on her own. But she could not, not with tempting danger hanging in the air.