The ravens are far more observant as the timely wolves; where the wolves lay in dormancy, dark eyes like glowing slits in the shadow, it is the ravens that flock above. Beady eyes ever-watchful, wings ever flapping. It it the murder above that caw and crow, it is their untimely disturbance that makes me shift from my rest. I rest not because I want to, but because of certain needs. The life within, it was ever impatient. Shifting uncomfortably against my barrel, pushing at places I never knew existed. I did not do the swelling life so well. My normally lithe, towering form was cumbersome. I found weaving through the trees much more harder. But I moved now with care more than grace. There was much more to the way I walked, than it was before.
There are shadows crossing the border; but one of them is as pallid as the ghouls in the deepest, darkest part of the forest. My green eyes narrow upon them both. One leads the other, like one would lead a prisoner, a ball and chain is just not far behind. My plume glides over my hocks, the crisp winter wind catching my filaments of gold mane and making a gilt cascade against my sun-kissed skin. I'm there in several strides, my lofty frame a tower, but now also as much sideways as it is upwards. I lower my head, my nose pushed gently against my chest. I am careful, I hold slithers of concern for not only my child, but the Chamber as well. For both are as important to me in life as breath is to a lung, as a beat is to the lucid heart, locked within the chest.
My gilded ears turn, capturing the ghostly steed's words, and then I hear the broken girl's pleas, her voice as fragile as the tender tinder strewn across the floor. I am not the most compassionate of mares, my loyalty is for none other than the Chamber and of course my earthen knight (I am quite surprised he is not here first, being as keen as border patrol as I am.) Still, my ear cocks to the side, waiting to hear his familiar hoofbeats. But for now, I shall entertain the guests.
'Is she meant to be a gift? I'm certain the Chamber does not need charity, so much as being gifted broken things.' my tone is sultry as the earth, as I weave the tendrils of black magic with my voice alone. I turn my sapphire eye to the fragile girl, roaming her, noting the scars, the bones as they practically leap from her chocolate skin. 'What do you intend on doing with her? Feeding her to the wolves?' I tilt my head, a strange gesture, but it gets me a better look of the female. I shake my head then, and then adjust my gaze to settle on the stranger. His crimson eyes as menacing as the glow in the deepest darkest patches of the pines. But I have fought much a nightmarish filament, and not much imposes me with fear. 'I am Engelsfors. And you, stranger, who are you, one that brings the Chamber such... lovely things?'
E n g e l s f o r s
drink thy posion lightly dear. there are deeper and darker things than you
minister of the chamber |
