You know me - And Shrike nods, although that new and uncertain thing inside her, shifting like a shadow, wonders.
Something had happened between he and the black unicorn, something she had missed in death and the in-between place she had gone and in the desert, too. Something she cannot quite see the shape of, or maybe doesn’t want to.
It is not a thing Shrike has experienced or can understand, and it is not a thing she will ask him about. Nor Calliope, in all likelihood – theirs had never been that kind of relationship. But she knows it will nag at her like a horsefly until her gathering suspicions are confirmed. And then--?
Her head tilts as her unspoken question is turned back on her. For a moment her gaze is far away, looking to the north, where the sun shines hot and cruel on endless shifting sands.
When it cuts instead to Raymond, she wears no smile at all. “I intend to find out what I can of the mindset of this place. It is not the chaos of the rift or the factions of Ravos. It is like nothing I’ve known.” She refers to courts and music, foolishness and finery, but she thinks, too, of the Davke. Of civilizations that have built and built for more years than leaves on a pinoak and how each generation lay bricks on the evils of the last.
And then, at last, something like shame creeps onto her expression, and the line of her mouth turns hard, and she turns her narrow head away.
“And I suppose I must convince Calliope that she will not need to kill me again.” The words taste bitter as bad water and when she swallows it seems to catch in her throat like a blade.
get your war paint on
let them know we're out for blood
let them know we're out for blood
@Raymond
