violence
She’d missed the festivities, had not returned to the land she had once (briefly) called home. It had been a strange time, a quick turn of events that she was only tangentially aware of, and then suddenly there were new lands and a new sickness.
She didn’t flee – she’s never been a coward – had instead stayed in central parts of Beqanna, watching with her own morbid curiosity how things might unfold. She’s witnessed no deaths, yet, which frustrates her – she prefers bones as her playthings, but a fresh-dead corpse might have its own benefits. Horses know bones immediately for a puppet, it might take longer with a thing just-dead, an interesting possibility.
She’s considered making her own corpse, but it would be messy, and a caved-in skull would ruin the illusion, she supposes. She lacks any kind of healing, any real ability to repair the things she may ruin.
The stallion is gray, and boring, and it’s just luck (hers, not his) that she sees him as she walks. She stops, and her bone-thing – a hideous creation, a rebuilt skeleton made from bones of several creatures, pieced together – halts too, the bones rattling softly against one another. She glances at it, and its head tilts too, as if they are co-conspirators, not a woman and her odd puppet. She nods, and walks closer.
She can smell blood, which piques her interest – perhaps he is wounded – and is disappointed when he opens his mouth and spits out the blood.
Still, though – that could be interesting in its own right.
“Hello,” she says, stepping closer, shadows falling across her back, disappearing into her own blackness, “are you ill?”
She asks this as if she is sympathetic. Behind her, the bone-thing stands, impassive.
I’d stay the hand of god, but war is on your lips
