War lingered in the very marrow of her sinewy bones, dormant during the dim hours of evening yet awakened easily in the birth of a new morning. Given life so soon after the last war, her mind still remembered too well the stagnant stench of rotting corpses, the sight of bodies slain and left to rot beneath the heat of a setting sun, and the blood that stained the land before being washed away by a cleansing rain. Her youthful eyes had seen the carnage, her curious mind told the morbid tales of violence and greed, and the salty lust for blood soon found her vulnerable heart.

   Alas, time and finesse had since taught her to conceal her darker desires beneath an otherwise stoic exterior - but in the shadows of night, she had often practiced bending and splitting the dried bones of the deceased and the manipulation of the sick and dying. So fascinated was she with death as a child that she no longer feared it. Having lost a daughter born still to fate only served to further harden her callous heart, though her beloved Canaan and Hawke drew out a fiercely protective part of her that would provoke even the most demure part of her to shed blood. 
 
   Time had not quelled her desires; merely softened their rough edges. 

  A gentle call carries along the warm morning breeze, and her hazel eyes, glimmering with amusement, settle along the feminine form of mousy gray and the muscled physique of a too-familiar golden male. A call for solidarity; for union. Oh, I can't miss this, she muses to herself wryly, her massive white plumage tucked tightly to her sides as she follows the pull of gravity, allowing the weight of her body to push her down along the hill crest. 

   A faint nod is given to both, her feigned smile one of camaraderie but she wondered how much blood Rael Fire had seen spilled, how much carnage had she seen - and how far would she go to settle the line, to defend the lives of many while destroying the lives of others?

   Her eyes glimmer in the rising sunlight.
   Perhaps this was the entertainment she had been so deeply craving.

   "Magnus. Rael Fire, is it?" Her voice is low, and deceivingly kind. "My name is Ellyse. I seek to defend our land, in any way that I can. It would seem that for now, it is only the two of us .. and like you, I fear we have grown complacent. Let us settle the leadership. A challenge, between you and I. What do you say?"

Ellyse