And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan’t crack;
And death shall have no dominion."
The desert has never been able to keep its secrets from her. Not when she drags them into the dunes with a primordial savageness each grain of sand understands. And perhaps this secret, the black-center of Solterra, is one that leaked into the magic of the earth and made monsters.
It's with the monsters that she comes to the black-center. Things made to devour mortals race in the dune below her hooves, and sand-storms gather like a storm in the clouds billowing up like hounds at her heels. Eligos gallops shoulder-to-shoulder with her, and their lungs heave with the howls rising like soot from their lips. Here there is nothing for them to devour, or hunt, or chase until their hearts are hanging on the edge of a cliff.
Here everything is already dead or dying.
The city is quiet as they cross the stone gates guarding the heart of Solterra. No guards try to stop them, perhaps inspired to silence by the shine of Eligos in the moonlight that has been whispered to them in nightmares. And there is no one to follow as they make their way to the jagged scar in the sand and stone. It doesn't matter, not with the bones singing to her like sirens below the dirt--
Not with the way all the ancient death is calling her home.
She does not care why the bones are here, nor how much the long rotted flesh that once sheltered them suffered. It is enough that they are here, shining bone and diamond white in the firelight surrounding the entrance. It is enough to hear the song in the silence, the low hum of decay and dust echoing like the heart of the earth. Their footsteps are silent as they follow the thrumming chant and their shadows blend into the darkness like a tangle tomb sliding between the others (sentient instead of still).
Thana continues onward, listening perhaps to the bone-song and her heart-song, as the darkness grows blacker and darker, and thick enough to choke on. Even then she does not stop. A faded banner flutters like a blossom in the wake of her movement. It is the banner that makes her stop when she finally reaches it.
And when she lays her cheek against it, and turns it to dust, Thana starts to hum the song of the catacombs. The darkness is not silent then..
It is purring, and hungry, and awake, awake, awake.
@Zayir
