She comes late to the gathering, bold in her blood-red and white, silent as heat lightning. Her eyes are dark and keen and only for Calliope, her ears twisting back at the brazen crying of the thunderbirds.
Her body remembers the battle with them - it remembers in scabs and scars, remembers in a strip of hair that rises along her back. Remembers in the roughness of her throat, the ghost of a scream caught there. Most of all it remembers with a vision of Calliope, stricken on the bloody field, dull-eyed and dying.
Shrike is not interested in peace.
But this is not her court (not her world), and she draws alongside Calliope in silence, pressing her muzzle to the black unicorn’s before falling still. There is something ursine in the way she stands, shoulders and neck hunched and ready, gaze so hungry on the sky. The night queen’s words are only wind in her ears; the only thing she cares to hear is the sound of the lionesses’ breathing from beside her. It is the only comfort she needs.
There is nothing else for her but to wait, and feel the storm beneath her skin, and see if it will build and break or blow away.
don't do much these days
keep the wolves at bay
keep the wolves at bay
