She is drawn to the forest for reasons she can never quite decipher, though she supposes it is anchored to why she has always been attracted to the dark in general.

The way she is so easily lured to the things not meant for her, and she, far too bright, is not a thing made for shadows.

The light that radiates from her—far more vivid than the soft, ethereal glow she'd had when she first became an angel, having now transformed into something that is sharper and no longer a thing of hazy, golden dreams—chases away the shadows that would have been cast by the trees she winds through. The darkness stops short of the light as if it has hit a wall, and sometimes she wishes just once that she had any kind of control over it—a way to soften and blur her edges, a way to disappear into the dark. She could be seen by any lurking with sharp clarity, every detail seemingly beneath a spotlight: from the amber halo that rings her pale head and illuminates the near-black of her eyes, to the stardust that falls in a shimmering trail from her wings, there is nothing discreet about her presence.

She seeks the darker parts of the forest, as if she might somehow find a shadow strong enough to swallow the light of her. A place reminiscent of that black void, and though the thought sends a shiver of something similar to fear along her spine, her steps do not falter. Enough time has passed between her rescue—she prefers to think of it that way, a foolish and toxic romantic to the core—and accidental (she likes to think of it this way, too, as she had only been following Firion) escape that she had mostly recovered to a version of her previous self. The bouts of confusion and tilted reality were few and far between, and she has, unfortunately, returned to some of her old ways.

Because she sees the black mare and the bone-creature that she walks alongside of her, and instead of recoiling she drifts closer. Perhaps it is only because the puppet-like creation reminds her of Stave and the way she had seen him pull bones from their graves, and her chest clenches at the strange familiarity. Of course only she could be stirred to a maternal melancholy at the sight of a mismatched skeleton.

“I have a son that used to have a fascination with bones,” she says by way of greeting, before amending herself with a small smile. “Well, I suppose he probably still does. But it’s been awhile since I’ve seen him.” Some might consider that a failure on her part, that she cannot—does not—keep a close connection with every child. But there are too many of them, flung to every corner of Beqanna, and Stave had never struck her as the type that would seek her out anyway. “I’m Ryatah,” she says as her dark eyes lift from the bones to the mare that controls them, searching for a sign of familiarity—pieces of herself, or anyone else that she might know—in the shape of her face.

It is a nearly toxic thing, the way her pulse flutters when the other says that her name is pretty. It is a small compliment, and likely just making conversation rather than anything genuine, but it does not matter. She is hard-wired to seek praise, a flaw that she had perhaps been born with but had then been shaped into something uncontrollable as events in her life transpired. It flickers there, in the dark of her eyes, a brief flash of something unnamable and strange, as if there is a war waging within the confines of her chest; trying to decide if she wants to give into the weakness of it. She has been better, recently, about not trying to please everyone, about not trying to change herself to fit everyone’s wants.

For some she still will, of course, but no longer everyone.

And so all she does is smile and nod, and offer a soft, “Thank you.” She looks to the place where the shadows had trailed the mare’s movements, thinks of the immovable darkness in the void and feels the unnerving swelling in her chest that has followed her ever since she left, like the darkness has holed itself away in there and is trying to break free. “You can control shadows, too?” she asks in mild curiosity, thinking briefly of Illum and their daughter and the way they could bend shadows to their will. She has never had much desire to control anything, is usually the thing being controlled. She has always been a painfully obedient creature, until, of course, she is not, because there is a sickening thrill in being punished—in discovering what boundaries exist and exactly which ones should not be crossed.

“Fathers are important, I suppose,” she says, faintly amused. Most of her children didn’t know their fathers, at least not personally. It was hardly a secret that she had developed a distinct taste in men—a taste that did not lend well to fatherhood, but she doesn’t mind. She was rarely interested in them for that reason.

“Violence,” her name fits nicely on her tongue, maybe a little too comfortably for one that wears a halo, but the shape of it—the meaning behind it—is familiar. “Also a pretty name, if not in a different way.” She does notice the strangeness of that comment, her expression unchanged; still openly curious with lips shaped into a faint smile. “Were you looking for something in the forest?”