Don't say I'm out of touch with this rampant chaos; your reality.
I know well what lies beyond my sleeping refuge.

  Her thick alabaster wings flex as she arrives, shaking her bristling feathers free of the sparse leaves and twigs that have found themselves tangled within them from a journey elsewhere, far beyond the shoreline. The sun is lost to the rising of the wayward moon, and yet the vivid colors of sunset still caress the distant horizon, illuminating the churning ocean tide in a glow. She had searched far and wide for the one whispered to be a trespasser; intruder. Invader.

  Karaugh is none of these things, not to the iron Queen. She cares little for mindless, pathetic games played by one feigning strength, by a wolf cloaked in sheepskin. Her purpose, to terrorize, is thinly veiled, and Ellyse does not have the time nor the patience to dance with her. Ellyse is not concerned; merely annoyed at best. Karaugh is no threat. Dismay is what her presence is met with – not shock, nor surprise.

  Disdain, distaste, dismay.

  Her gaze searches the sullen darkness of the descending nightfall, as the soft bristling of her feathered appendages tuck along her barrel and brush along the broad rib cage of Dahmer. She had been told of her presence long before by those who had attempted to intercede, when the sun was still high in the sky and bathing the dry grassland in its vivid splendor, but Karaugh had hidden - oh so clever, she is, wicked and wry, but Ellyse would have the last laugh.

  Karaugh is fluttering, flapping frantically (fat little thing, she is – broad and supple with child, she supposes, or merely obese) toward the monument centered on the island. The air is slowly thickening with each passing moment as the volcano is awakened, pluming thick clouds of smoke into the otherwise clear atmosphere. As if it sensed the tension. As if it knew trouble hung below.

  Her shoulder presses against Dahmer’s, as the golden flecks of her hazel eye seek his own, a glacial blue. ”Would it be too much to ask of you to knock her into the volcano? Or must I pluck her fickle little wings off of her myself?”

Ellyse

(The nightmare) I built my own world to escape

Don't say I'm out of touch with this rampant chaos; your reality.
I know well what lies beyond my sleeping refuge.

 ”You know me too well,” she murmurs with an uptick of a wicked smile, drawn to her lips like the sudden burst of a flickering flame. She would find enjoyment in plucking her delicate, feeble little wings off her body, but she cared little for the chase. She would wait until she became tired, weakened by her own depleted energy and the burden of whatever spawn she carried inside of her. Perhaps that made her more of a scavenger than a hunter – and perhaps she preferred it that way. The pleasure would be had either way; she would not depart from the volcanic island unscathed.

  Dahmer is gone before she can say another word – if he were not, he might see the way she becomes flustered at the affectionate (and sexually charged) nickname. He is gone, fleeting into the blackness of nightfall, his broad wingspan spread across the obscurity of a hazy sky. She is reminded then of the ravens that had plucked away at her eyes, her open, gaping wounds – and thus, his raven shifting. She is reminded that the diamond imprinted onto his forehead, a brand carved by a malevolent, merciless god – and thus, her diamond armor. Tying him to her, and her to him.

  It does not stop the shudder from creeping down along her spine at the sight of him, reshaped into the watchful, beady eyed avian creature. The only semblance of solace are the pair of cerulean eyes, reminding her always that he is beneath the feathers and brittle bone and hardened beak, and not the monstrous assailants in another world. Another place.

  Her quiet reverie is broken by blistering, hot flame – it does not touch her, but the heat alone is enough to rouse her attention, as her hazel eye focuses on the shimmering flame flickering along the crest of his broad neck. Levi, the son of Offspring. A deep, rumbling chuckle is pulled from her chest at his gentle jest, as a smirk hides away within the corner of her pale lips. She is not at all like Offspring – he and she shared similar ideals, perhaps, but each of their handling methods were .. different. She is left wondering if he might know that, if he might see it as a strength, rather than a weakness.
She would do what he would not.

  She would set fire to what she had to, where he longed to quiet the flame.

  ”That would be quite a sight, though I have always been an underling myself, and I happen to like the dirty work.” she muses, studying the strong, handsome features of his face. She has been around long enough to have seen him become what he has. Once lost, unsure of his place, reckless and careless. He is no older than her first son, Canaan, and though she does often keep to herself, she is ever watchful – certainly so of the wayward son of the once-Overseer. He had potential. She quietly wonders if he knows it.

  But she does not need to tell him what to do. He can see it within her eye; he can read her so easily.
  So few can. She is impressed, and intrigued.

  She moves forward effortlessly, to the dancing fire enveloping the intruder, while her own gold-laced eye glimmers with delight. She has never had any patience for insolence, but she is quite fond of pageantry.

  ”You will not be going anywhere,” she calls out to Karaugh over the raging inferno, her feathers bristling as the fervent heat of the fire washes over her. Her eye searches the illumination for Levi, tracing his broad jaw and heated gaze with her own. ”Levi, keep her. Bound her, burn her into ash, do what you will. I’ve had enough of her wandering Tephra unscathed. Show her why she should not do so again.”

Ellyse

(The nightmare) I built my own world to escape