[open] the world was on fire & nobody could save me but you; any

[Iliana]

I L I A N A

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.

-- the shadow is mine, and so is the valley