from the mind of Chaos’s lonely daughter
and the sun fell heavy and thick
to warm the blood of a world"
There is desolation in the desert, there upon the surface of it, for everyone to see. It hangs above the dune in a haze, a layer of shifting gold and silver at seems thick enough to choke on. The miles seems endless, and silent but for the roar of a sand-monster, and bloated with light. Today the desert is no different. Like always is as endless as its god and brutal as the beasts that bed down in the dune each night.
But there is another world below that desolation, below the sun-bloat and the thick haze. It's a howl in the wind that seems to come from the distant sea. There are hints of it in the dunes, where the wind blows ripples of sand instead of storms. It's that trail that Amaunet follows, spreading out below the shadow of her wings like a map only she can see. She's flown it so many times the wind seems to whisper her name between her feathers, like it's welcoming home a wayward child with blood on their lips instead of dirt.
When she loops lazy circles over the pathway a pack of jackals only lift their heads like rabbits spotting a hawk. For a moment she wonders what they would do if she swooped low as an eagle and bellowed at them like a lion. Would they run or would they mount a war?
Amaunet almost gives in to the wondering. Almost--
Ahead there is the glare of many spears lifted in a war-game, and the soft echo of a battle-cry. It all looks like art to her, the violence of the weapon and the poetry in the sinew of the forms holding death in their grasp. It all looks like home. Her own soft huff of violence echoes down to them, and in the pack she can see her mother lift her eyes up like a lion looking at its cub come to steal the pride (there is a little love in it, but mostly warning.).
The sand feels almost hot under her hooves when she lands in a flurry of feather and dirt. Like a wolf she shakes it off, tossing her feathers until all the dirt and grime of her travels is gone (until she shines like delicate lamb she might pretend to be). Her eyes blaze over the gathered Davke and her teeth flash as her whole body says, remember me, remember how I came to you once with blood on my lips and a body in my wake.. Even now she knows better than to show weakness here.
Amaunet spreads her wings, wide enough that the sun seems only a holy ring of light behind her, as the rest of the Davke settle back into the training. She does not join them, not yet. There is something else she's waiting for. It came as a whisper on the wind, and like any beast that can see the world below the desolation, she listened.
So she settles into waiting, never once shedding that halo of light around her form.
@Avdotya
