Shrike has never been vain. Now, as she winds down the twisting pathways with a thousand copies of her reflection watching her like ripples going out and out on a pond, she looks at none of them. She keeps her eyes cast on the ground, scenting the difference between the glass and the dark dirt below her feet, her ears easing occasionally back at the stallion who walks behind her.
She has not yet said a word to him, nor has he offered any in return; this suits her just fine.
Always, always, she is looking for signs of a different kind of magic. A feral, more ancient kind, one that not even a unicorn could tame (not even a queen). But there are no traces of the rift, here, and no traces of Ravos. There is only the clean, smooth smell of glass. Only when she passes the dragons and the birds does she pause (perhaps letting the other horse pass her), and think solemnly of a fallen-kingdom world where griffins and dragons were thick as crows in the air and stone steps led down and down and down to darkness.
When she continues on, without a last glance back at the lie in those mirrors, it is with both unease and determination.
Then comes the divide. Here again she pauses, considering her left, regarding her right. It is beautiful, the way the right path darkens before bursting with starlight, colored like a sky with a cleft of brilliant light, a distant galaxy.
But Shrike has never been a horse to consider the sky, or to dream big dreams. She has ever only concerned herself with the stone and dirt at her feet and the work to be done.
She takes the left turn, and squints into the light until it fades away, and inhales the scent of mushrooms. This is like something else from the Rift, and Shrike is cautious as she goes, wondering if Isra might have monsters in her heart.
—-path of mushrooms
don't do much these days
keep the wolves at bay
keep the wolves at bay
