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}