As had become the norm of late (not to be mistaken with a slump in haughty self-assurance), Valkyrie chose to flank the sparkling, glitter-slavered, unorthodox-looking entourage from a safe and secure distance.
It seemed that the dregs of the Rift were coming out of their shadowy lairs in droves - queer varieties of equid or not were encircling the hefty Loricatrunc - and the vain young Shieldmaiden felt rather like a rose among them, the particularly unpleasant thorns, as she followed their comical trail. By now she was familiar with the Matron (for they hummed on about her incessantly like bees about the mother), her position above the rest at least, and the fact that they all viewed her with an obvious level of revere; cunningly she proffered to the Riftian the same, blending in despite the stark contrast between every aspect which possessed them.
The journey into the north was not a particularly short or easy one. Though decidedly flat, the rain through recent months had turned the vast, golden desert surface into a slippery cesspool of sticky orange mud. In no time at all and much to the fastidious young horse’s disapproval, Valkyrie’s legs and lean white undercarriage had been stained the same colour. She hoped gravely that a lake like that of the summit lay at the end of their trek, and though her spirit quickly tired of the hassle it all seemed to be (despite the quest which had brought her into the Rift, she was hardly the seasoned traveller), she clung to the hope that something more sensible than glitter lay at the other end.
Not that she was opposed to the glitter after all: the Daughter of Sunnmōre was quite taken by the shimmer and sparkle of her body in even the dimmest of Drench’s murky lights. Insouciantly she continued, until at last they arrived beneath the northern spires, which on more than one occasion before had inspired her notice.
The Pinnacle
