'There is a hollow in her heart full of knives and full of poison. She drinks from its dark waters every morning. She prays to its dark depths every night. In this cauldron there are no moons to swallow down as they rise, no burning suns to seethe and writhe away from every morning. There is only darkness.
There is only silence.
There is only self.
So she travels on these endless waters, wades in the pools of eternity. Time is endless, only the ticking of her heart telling her that she is still alive alongside the burning in her gut. It burns so bright, so hot, so fierce that it is cold. Arctic and bleak. Once, these barren lands were teeming with life, with flowers whose heads faced the sun of a brighter future. Ideas were borne on the backs of gulls and crows, jays and falcons, delivered to her flight every dawn, tucking them into bed with confidence in their glorious future.
Those died when she was buried beneath the cliffs, when she could not see the sky - only bare walls and prison bars left for her to see.
Dalmatia moves now away from the Terrastella of the past, away from the Terrastella of the present. It is a riotous mess of priestesses and fragmented flights, of broken kings and girls with too bright of eyes pining after something - someone - they might never have. Her gut tightens, a roiling knot, disgust at what has become of her nation, of what she let happen, as clear as the fading light on her skin.
When it is gone, she has only the light of a falling dragon up ahead, the burning of a fire, to draw her nearer and nearer. Beckoned forth by the fire, by the body that huddles and waits beside it, she does not let fear take root in her breast. There never was any room for that anyway, not when every flight is one strike away from falling.
A bird does not fear freezing to death nor falling from the skies, and so she does not fear her end wherever it should come.
The magpie woman stops just over the border between light and dark, green eyes tracing lines into the curve of dark horns, learning the crevices of gold and cream skin. When she looks upon the pair, it is a face of silence that greets them.
She does not speak.
Silence is as much a weapon as words.
Beware: I am fearless, and therefore, powerful.
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