Shrike feels no shame for the relief that flutters in her heart like a battlement flag when Calliope returns to her side. How long, how long had she hoped for this reunion?
“You are the last,” she answers, “you are the only one of your kind.” She closes her eyes against the whisper of Calliope’s muzzle on her skin; she presses her cheek against the dark unicorn’s, the white of her skin all the starker for the black it rests against.
She is not aware that her words are only a half-truth; she is not aware that some part of her rift-splintered soul walked first as a bear and later, in a world much changed, as something far stranger. It is a mercy, then, that the last thing she recalls is her death.
Every troubled thought that has gathered like a storm in her heart is swept away, leaving only sorrow for the pain that has passed between them and joy for the future that stands before them now, shining in new sun.
It is almost with wonder that she pulls away – only enough to touch her muzzle to the black arc of Calliope’s horn, a reaper’s scythe that has cut down so many monsters. That has cut down more than that.
Shrike does not close her eyes then, for she knows what she would see: the face of the unicorn, despair and wrath, standing over her in a pocket between worlds. The paint had failed, had failed, had failed – and even so found mercy.
“I remember everything.” Her gaze lingers on the electric blue of Calliope’s and her words are low as a secret.
She does not say forgive me, but it is there in her eyes all the same.
And then she turns away, casting her dark gaze over Raymond from nose to tail-tip with a smile that grows and grows until it mirrors his own. “Raymond,” she says, and inclines her head, a scant nod. (She does not guess what has passed between them; she does not yet see).
But it is Calliope she turns to – she always will turn to – for direction.
“It seems we have a foe,” she says, and pulls in a breath of the god-heavy air. “What do you know of this?”
@Calliope @Raymond
“You are the last,” she answers, “you are the only one of your kind.” She closes her eyes against the whisper of Calliope’s muzzle on her skin; she presses her cheek against the dark unicorn’s, the white of her skin all the starker for the black it rests against.
She is not aware that her words are only a half-truth; she is not aware that some part of her rift-splintered soul walked first as a bear and later, in a world much changed, as something far stranger. It is a mercy, then, that the last thing she recalls is her death.
Every troubled thought that has gathered like a storm in her heart is swept away, leaving only sorrow for the pain that has passed between them and joy for the future that stands before them now, shining in new sun.
It is almost with wonder that she pulls away – only enough to touch her muzzle to the black arc of Calliope’s horn, a reaper’s scythe that has cut down so many monsters. That has cut down more than that.
Shrike does not close her eyes then, for she knows what she would see: the face of the unicorn, despair and wrath, standing over her in a pocket between worlds. The paint had failed, had failed, had failed – and even so found mercy.
“I remember everything.” Her gaze lingers on the electric blue of Calliope’s and her words are low as a secret.
She does not say forgive me, but it is there in her eyes all the same.
And then she turns away, casting her dark gaze over Raymond from nose to tail-tip with a smile that grows and grows until it mirrors his own. “Raymond,” she says, and inclines her head, a scant nod. (She does not guess what has passed between them; she does not yet see).
But it is Calliope she turns to – she always will turn to – for direction.
“It seems we have a foe,” she says, and pulls in a breath of the god-heavy air. “What do you know of this?”
@Calliope @Raymond
get your war paint on
let them know we're out for blood
let them know we're out for blood
