[P] heaven's hell, I say;

[Shrike]

There was never a good time to traverse the desert. Always it waited, sure as the sea, to consume with heat and wind and time as surely as the ocean did its drowning. Neither of them were quick to give up their bones.
 
But autumn was a little better than summer, and for Shrike, it would have to do.
 
She walked now like a fly across the spine of a great and slumbering beast, a small speck on a looming dune. The paint had walked through the night, beneath a sickle moon like a crook of bone, and now dawn was turning the world to soft pearl. It was as alien a landscape as any the riftlands had conjured, and it dredged up in Shrike a strange kind of nostalgia, a homesickness for a place that had tried a thousand times to kill her, and succeeded once.
 
Ah, but before that she had felt so very alive.
 
Now she half-dozed as she walked, her dark eyes heavy lidded and ears languid. There was mist at the summit of dunes this high, and it was a cool whisper against her pale flesh.
 
At last she paused, and looked out over the world, full of blue shadows and faint rose sand: an apt landscape for hunting phantoms.
 
She had told Raymond she wished to learn more of the world that feral magic had deposited them in, and Shrike was no liar. But she had said nothing at all to Calliope, slipping away from Denocte like one of its thousand shadows, and for that she felt almost ashamed. She was unused to keeping information to herself.
 
There: a dark line like a gossamer thread, the same kind of line she was leaving behind her. Shrike cut down across the dune, slipping some, leaning back on her haunches when needed, until the sand heaped up above her and she walked in its windless shadow. From high above, the trail had looked like the kind left behind by a snake. Now it was remade into nothing more than half-moon prints; a horse just like herself.
 
Yet left by a viper still, she thought to herself, and smiled grimly as she followed them.

don't do much these days
keep the wolves at bay

@Avdotya

[Avdotya]

A viper’s trail, indeed. Avdotya stalked the dunes with the remnants of the night still smattered upon her hide; small, red flecks dotted her hide, becoming clear only as the subtle light of dawn came creeping over the horizon. It was a look she wore often, though not before the eyes of an unplanned visitor... however, given her new reputation, the woman seemed less interested in hiding the evidence of her habits. No longer did she need to portray herself as the nation’s brooding Regent, instead she was now the snake that set fire to Solterra. Who was she to hide such an identity. And so, as she noted the follower she’d gained in Shrike, she did not hesitate to address the pretty painted mare. ”I believe ‘hello’ is the word you may be looking for.” She called back to her, only stopping her forward march after uttering the last few syllables. The Davke curled her neck just so, turning it enough to bring her newfound company into the focus of her eye. ”...unless your intentions lie elsewhere.” Avdotya added coolly. She took a deep breath of cool morning air, the muscles in her body tight and ready for an altercation. The viper had grown used to being followed by self-righteous do-gooders, those that thought they were Solterra’s messiah and its bringer of justice. She knew the Mors well enough to lose them before they tried anything foolish, but there was something about this one in particular that made her stop long enough to at least investigate. Avdotya turned to face Shrike with an almost expectant look upon her hardened face.  What new title would she earn herself today? @shrike hERE U GO <3 image © pacificdash

[Shrike]

Shrike had heard the desert-mare adorned herself with skins and carried with her a spear (and well she remembered meeting others such armed, that nights months ago), but still she was unprepared to be met with the empty-eyed stare of the bear skull.

Identification of the animal - of what was left of it - struck her heart like a blow.

She shared no kinship with the animal, she knew. Yet she had known such teeth as the ones bared at her now in a leering grin, and she had lumbered on enormous paws and slept safe wrapped in a coat as shaggy and thick.

That was the first thing of Avdotya that snagged her interest, aside from the initial flash of eyes in the growing morning. With little more than a grunt of acknowledgement she took in the rest of the dark woman, and it did not take long for her gaze to find the scars.

There was something about those years-old marks that stirred further recognition in Shrike; she knew intimately the creature that had such a space between its claws. Not for the first time (and certainly not the last), Shrike wished she could still change into the bear-skin, give herself to more base instincts - but what good was wishing?

The bear lived in her bones no longer; the only remnant was the ursine smile that sometimes worked its way onto her grim lips. Even that was absent now, as she inferred the story between scars and hide.

“Hello, then,” she answered evenly, at last drawing her gaze back from the map of scars and blood-spatters and bones to the bright hungry gleam of the mare’s eyes.

The paint was reticent at the best of times, but she figured the desert mare would be as unwilling to offer conversation as she. Tracking her had little use for them to only stand and measure one another, and so, with a lazy flick of an ear, Shrike continued. “There are many stories about you, but I don’t know the tellers well enough to trust them.” There was truth buried in each of their tales, but she had enough experience with such things to know it was never the whole of it.

Solterra was not her home, not her story, and she was not so foolish as to imagine otherwise. But after being caught up in that night, the burning-night, and then the god-summons after - well, even she grew curious.

The scent of blood was copper-sharp against the cool sand and this, too, drew her interest; with a jerk of her muzzle she indicated its presence, and did not try to keep the curiosity from her tone. “I see your work is not yet done.”

don't do much these days
keep the wolves at bay

@Avdotya