It is not often that she ventures from the pines of the Chamber, but boredom has driven her toward the heart of Beqanna. After growing so accustomed to the dappled shadows of the forested kingdom, the meadow feels open, exposed. The night sky stretches above her in a seemingly endless expanse, and only the tall grass—yellowed by the end of summer—provides cover. Not that she really needed it; any on-looker would take one glance at the panther with the rose gold markings and know she was a horse in shifted form.

The other horses were not her prey, and besides, she’d already caught her kill for the night at the first fall of twilight.

The sound of fire crackling, the faint tinge of smoke, and the distant glow of flames causes her to pause, rabbit still hanging in her jaws. What is up with everyone starting fires? she thinks to herself, remembering the fire the stallion had started in the Chamber.

Always the curious one, she lopes towards the source of the flame, not at all surprised to find a different man as being allegedly the starter of this one. She stands at the edge, firelight glinting off her rosettes, and she drops the rabbit to the ground at her paws. “I’m afraid I only brought enough for me,” she apologizes, blood-stained lips peeled into a feline grin.

“Well, you do have a fire if you’d like for it to be a bit more well done,” she says pointedly, though really she had no interest in sharing. Settling down onto the grass with her kill clasped in her paws, she is just about to dig her teeth in when another joins them. She almost laughs when he asks the fire-starter if he has a permit, but it comes as only a sharp exhale through her nose. “Beqanna seems to be full of pyromaniacs right now,” she muses, thinking of the fire in the Chamber. Both fires had been well-contained, of course, but it seemed a risky game in a land that was already known for collapsing and rebuilding at the faerie’s whims. Though earthquakes and storms seemed to be Beqanna’s modus operandi, a fire wasn’t too far fetched. Best not to give them any ideas.

When the next stranger approaches, she can’t help but to let her gaze linger over her for a bit longer than the others. It is not just because she is a skeleton, with that strange aura emanating from her. Iliana is, almost certain, that she has a brother with the same affliction. But then, Iliana had a lot of siblings, and she couldn’t be bothered to know them all. She knew only the children Atrox and Ryatah had together, and, less so, some of her younger half-siblings. After staring unabashedly she deduces that she did not actually know this girl, but that she is quite funny.

“We can perform a sacrifice if you all want, but not with my rabbit. You’ll have to find something else,” she says, gripping the bloodied fur tighter as if they may actually take it, her tail flicking lazily behind her.

As they stand there around the fire, this odd mix of strangers, she debates shifting into her equine form, but she would hate to waste her kill, and she knew it would become unappealing the moment she shifted back. Instead she rips into it, listening to the pyro speak. He introduces himself, and she swallows, her pink tongue flicking at the blood on her mouth before she interjects, “As strikingly original a nickname Panther Girl is, my name is actually Iliana.”