this is my domain
you're stepping on my ground
you're stepping on my ground
T
here’s no real reason that Vendetta is awake at midnight, on a typical Solterran winter eve. The sand is still slightly warm underhoof, the air bites just the right way as it brushes across her every curve, and her skirt leaves strange markings on the dunes as it floats across it with every step she takes.
The court is often quiet at night; they are a court of sun, of course. But the streets are no longer dead, no longer empty, like the eyes of some imprisoned beast. Perhaps that is why Vendetta finds herself among the endless sands of the Mors, with the moon turning them from burning gold to chilling silver. The quiet, she has always thrived in the silence. In the void between breaths, when others are too busy thinking about their next word, or meal.
Vendetta crests the rise of a dune and pauses at the great shape of what can only be a sandwyrm in the distance, and below it, like a speck against the desert, is the shadow of a rearing equine. She expects them to be disposed of, quickly.
That is not what happens, and the Mistress cannot stop herself from getting closer. Who is this mysterious equine, who disposes of desert giants as if they are nothing more than market vermin?
Whoever they are, they don’t seem to notice her approach. Vendetta takes a good long look at the dead sandwyrm, perhaps the cause of even more interest than the equine who caused its demise. It’s not as though she’s ever had the occasion to be this close to one before.
She still standing there, silently, when the other equine seems to snap out of whatever state they were in. They pull an arrow from between the beast’s eyes and grasp it, dripping blood and gore upon the sand at their feet, and that is when she sees the scars. Vendetta knows exactly who she is looking at, and her interest is far more piqued than it was before.
“Resurrection certainly… becomes you,” the unicorn says at last from where she stands behind the other mare, “Seraphina.” Vendetta looks keenly at the previous Solterran Sovereign, ruby eyes somehow sharper in the moonlight, curled horns glinting. Stories of Raum’s end had traveled the court like the fires that have consumed it, more than once.
But more than that, were the pieces of information of who had been there. Oh, certainly much of it has been glorified, many times over. Vendetta just so happens to have the proper ears to listen to what is true, and that truth is standing in front of her right now.
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