Homecoming. It would be a strange sensation to Anastasia. She supposes, in a way, the Chamber was her home. After all, it had been where she was raised (her and Michaelis’ period of time there may have even overlapped), but she did not feel any great affinity toward it. She felt not sense of loyalty. Of course, being the feral creature that she was, such emotions were lost on her. She was not against marching to the drums of war, but she would never understand someone throwing themselves onto the fire for someone else. Even Rho-nan, who made shadow portals and ate the bunny she gave him, did not command her. No one ever would, she was sure of it.

So the meadow does not feel like home in the same way that it does for him. She does not sigh with pleasure when she enters it, and the shadows around her do not clamber for her so much as stay because they have to; they were as much her as she was them. Still, she is pleased to be back within the borders. Pleased to use her own portals to hop along the border, spooking some as she cackled and moved on.

Until, of course, she sees him. She would always see those made of shadows.

Curious, she makes her way toward him. Curious, she walks up his side, silky black nose jutting rudely into his neck, pushing his jaw to the side. “In-ter-es-ting” her broken tongue speaks, and she leans back a little as if studying him. “Stop mo-ving,” she commands, the faint light glinting off her sharp, black teeth. She is tempted, however briefly, to bite him as she had Chantale, but then remembers the rubbery taste of the not-death but not-living mare and decides against it. Instead, she prods further.

“What are you?”

like the moon, we borrow our light
{I am nothing but a shadow in the night}

The souls of this world are alien to her.

She doesn’t understand their torment and their obsessions and she certainly does not understand the way they fight over power. It all seemed so trivial to her. But she likes them all the same. She likes the way their eyes light up when they talk about something that they are passionate about, and she likes the ways that they seem to enjoy their own destruction. It was fascinating to watch from afar, and she had spent her fair share of time watching all of them as she moved around the meadow. She had heard lover’s spats, and she had seen children playing, and she had heard whispers of political movements. It was all fascinating, even though she could not feel empathy.

She frowns at his answer, tilting her head at him as if trying to decipher it. “Hot mess?” she parrots back at him, thinking that if she said the words, she would understand them. She does not. She does not like the sensation of being in the dark or feeling stupid, and her lips curl back over her sharp teeth. “What does that mean?” the words are short, staccato, harsh in her mouth. “I do not like hot mess.” Of course, she does not like it because she does not know what it means. She would never like that.

He fires the question back at her, and she frowns at him, still not sure how she felt about him. She was hovering on the edge of it, and she took a step back, feeling her skin crawling with indecision. “I am Ana-sta-sia.” Naturally, her name was too complicated for her to say, and she stumbled over it the same way that she stumbled over all long words. It was an intricate name—a delicate one. Something that spoke of soft eyes and gentle smiles and was nothing like the brutish creature before him.

like the moon, we borrow our light
{I am nothing but a shadow in the night}

“Speak too much,” she grumbles, mostly to him and partly to herself, looking down as she did her best to untangle the latest sentence he had given her.

Hot messes. Idioms. All foreign words that just blurred the meaning he was trying to portray. It was not necessarily that Anastasia was stupid, it was just that she was smart in a very different way than most of the horses around Beqanna. She did not have the same vast vocabulary they had; she did not understand their politics; she could not unpack their complex relationships. But she could tell you the best way to hunt deer crawling up a mountain, and she could tell you the best place to bleed out a rabbit, and she could show you how to snap a neck with one quick shake.

“Shadows no like all of your words,” she frowns at him. “Do not like when hot air goes ‘woosh’ from your mouth.” She mimics by puffing up her cheeks and blowing out, eyes going comically wide. “Sound dumb like babe who ruins hunt. Blah, blah, blah.” It wasn’t necessarily true, and she knows that. The shadows seemed to like Michaelis just fine—clinging to his coat, scampering up his legs (traitors, she thinks viciously)—but it made her feel better to think that he was the stupid one in the duo.

Her ears remain pinned back to her skull, but one swivels forward at his name and she huffs loudly, giving him the equivalent of a stink eye. “Mich-ae-lis.” One hoof traces the dirt in front of her, and she mutters under her breath. “Dumb name.” Her thoughts and childish mutters are interrupted by the shadow that he sends out to her, and she is distracted by it, leaning into the dark touch for a moment before remembering herself and straightening. “What is fav-or-ite ani-mal to eat?” she asks suddenly, hoping that he could perhaps salvage his reputation, but knowing it was likely futile.

like the moon, we borrow our light
{I am nothing but a shadow in the night}