As another flash splinters the gloom (unnatural, that light, and the impression of movement and shadow and terror behind it) Lysander considers how much of a fool he was, to think that this world would be tame compared to the riftlands.
From the first moment he’d stumbled out of the portal, new-winter air curling around his golden coat, his strange and bloodied antlers, the once-god had thought this place was easy. All the monsters were only men, and he knew men.
But he has almost died twice, now, where before he’d always kept a comfortable distance from the worst of the danger. Is this what it was to be mortal – to care? Is this where such foolish emotions as love and wrath led?
Even for all he has learned Lysander does not have it in him to be afraid. He grins, black lips over a crescent-moon of white teeth. “I know a few other things that circle so,” he says, as the emerald of his eyes turns toward the sapphire of Isra’s, gemstones winking darkly in a cave.
After her bold words (foolish, he thinks, though perhaps she is new enough to Novus that she has not learned wisdom yet) he is almost surprised when the big mare steps into the cave behind them. Maybe her courage is tempered by something saner, after all – though he is hardly one to judge, these days.
He presses against the wall as she maneuvers passed them, his gaze watchful even in the dark. The last bit of light from the entrance limns them all until Katniss vanishes into another part of the cavern; there is no way to see the private amusement that curls his lip as the stranger among them takes charge.
It is no bother to him; he has always been content to observe. Lysander possesses none of the earnest nobility to lead, and his brand of arrogance is not the kind to put him at the front of any expedition.
So he only follows the unicorn when Katniss announces her find, and though the smell of clean water and the curl of mist around their bodies in the dark is unmistakable, he hesitates before approaching the smooth surface of the water.
If this were the rift, whatever pooled in the rock would be poison. It would make them dream, or die, or any madness in between.
He brushes his muzzle against Isra’s hip, and it is almost a warning (he ignores the way she smells of sea and spice underneath the clean, cold scent of snow). The sound of the wind still moans past the opening of their temporary shelter, but otherwise there is little sound but their breathing and the distant drip of water. It is close and dark and fast-warming, and Lysander’s gaze goes to Katniss.
“After you,” he says, and almost it sounds demure.
we wake with bright eyes now
ours is a white lies town
@Isra @
