Buoyant are her golden wings

Zahra & Ilham

It was pride that turned angels into devils

Beneath the intensity of the focus which so suddenly consumed her, there was the dead weight of apprehension. Time and time again, the Rift, devious and dangerous, had assaulted the stallion she stood with, torturing both his mind and his boy, and souring his impression, perhaps for good.

Zahra watched the remaining cat, as apparently did Eleos, with one raven-hued ear pressed forward towards it and the other swaying hither and thither, personifying the grim internal concern for the potential of history repeating itself.

Briefly, her eyes were severed from their hold,  flicking to view the collared male and discern the nature of his intention.

Before she could stop him (Zahra felt she needed a moment longer), an overt greeting was used from his lips. Her eyes narrowed into a scolding glare. “Shhhh…” she hissed through clamped molars, squeezing tightly feathered appendages against each flank with frustration. She thought unfairly to herself, interacting with this world’s nature has become a special pastime of his, but regretted it almost instantly. The truth of the matter was (in her opinion, of course) that Eleos quite abhorred the Rift and its inhabitants and his efforts to conceal the fact from her seemed weaker with ever encounter.

More humbly she smiled, switching her attention back to the remarkably attractive looking animal, and whispered (quite unwilling to entertain the idea of a trap this time), “…or I could provide a decoy, and you could stand on his tail?” It seemed a far simpler plan, and as she took a moment to rehearse its viability her eyes glanced upwards to glean his reaction.

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