“I know. I was there. I saw the great void in your soul, and you saw mine.”
Calliope is already pacing along the lake when they arrive. Violence rolls of her in waves of sweat and spark. Each step of her hooves is a statement of war for she cracks feathers and bones beneath her, hoping that perhaps the sound of it travels out to wherever the thunder-birds are licking their wounds. The horn above her head sighs like hungry steel when she turns and canters towards the others, watching their foolish queen bed herself down like an offering.
Part of Calliope wants to laugh for that innocent, stupid hopefulness of the other unicorn. Another part of it is ready to die to protect the fragile, innocent things of the world from the depravity of monsters.
For now she doesn't follow, only turns to the other mare and answers. “There are thunder-birds somewhere in the distance. And we are here to see if they will try to kill us or befriend us.” And when her eyes turn towards Caligo the moon glints off the battle-wounds on her neck still crusted with blood. Her eyes are not silver-blue anymore. They are rolling pits of sparks, sometimes weak but always furious.
The stallion puts something in Calliope on edge and her gaze when it settles on him is not unlike how a lion might look at a jackal. His feet never take another step towards their queen and Calliope judges him for the way he stands in the between, neither on one side or the other.
“If nothing else Isra has given them a target and us an easy way to judge what sort of monsters the birds will be today.” Her voice is thick with emotion and memory and her skin is alive with white-light that licks across her spine is hisses of a lash. Calliope says nothing else as she brushes past the other mare, past the goddess and pass the stallion to stand guard a few feet from the queen.
And where one unicorn beckons the beasts with story and hope the other calls to them with the low charge of a storm that is nothing to the boiling tornado of hate in her eyes. Calliope in that moment doesn't feel like a unicorn at all
She feels like an empty battle-field waiting for the drums and the trumpets.
