from the mind of Chaos’s lonely daughter
and the sun fell heavy and thick
to warm the blood of a world"
Lately the night in Solterra has seemed like a slumbering giant. The only sound the whispering of the salt dune and the soft hiss of the iron sand oxidizing. There has only been decay in the moonlight as the city learned to shed the chains of the last king, and the suffering of his endless hate.
But tonight, there is not a bit of slumbering in to found in the old forgotten tunnels below the city. Echos are bouncing off the limestone walls like arrows and the clay beneath her hooves is hard packed and littered with bits of paper and forgotten coins waiting to be stolen. There is an energy humming through the belly of Solterra tonight, and in turn there is a small sun roaring to life beneath Amaunet's skin.
The time to burn has come, that small humming sun whispers to her. Over and over it coos until the sound is nothing more than her own heartbeat echoing back at her. Blood races through her veins, a flood of violence crashing against the desert marrow of her heritage. With a blink, and a flare of her wings, Amaunet comes alive.
The crowd parts around her, like lambs to the nip of a hound's teeth, as she walks into the hot press of bodies. They know of course, that tonight she is not here to watch. Tonight she's coated in her warpaint that looks like blood smeared below her eyes. Tonight she looks like a wild bird-of-prey walking among the things trapped in the dirt.
Tonight she looks like she's ready to devour them all, bone by bone, organ by organ. She does not look like she's going to lose tonight; they know that look in her gaze. Hunger, of course they know the look of it, even without their chains they can still feel it eating away at their stomachs.
Maybe before there would have been a time that Solterra would have felted bloated enough to say, that is enough. But not now, not with their sea-king and his blessed lion and the dead king's statues still scattered in courtyards. Nothing will ever been enough now.
But when she steps closer to the stage, smiling as a bit of blood flares out form the flight towards her like a ray of light reaching for the petal of a flower, each of the things trapped in the dirt knows that tonight Amaunet will fill their hollow stomach a little more with violence.
Maybe tomorrow, when the sun rises, it will almost be enough.
@any!
