All she can do is stare at him with thinly veiled confusion and excitement dancing back and forth between her narrowed, two-toned gaze. He disarmed her at almost every turn, always finding ways of pushing her further and further from all that she knew in a way that somehow didn’t utterly and ultimately piss her off. It made her metaphorically shake her head, astounded at him and yet still on guard at the same time. There was something about him, about the fantastical way he spoke all the time and never seemed to truly let her in that gave her pause. So as she sits, removed and indignant of his roguish comments, she can’t help but feel he is proud of himself for getting such a rise out of her. She sighs at his words, rolling her broad shoulders attempting to calm the storm that seems all too willing to rage inside; something she is not a fan of. Would he ever be straight with her?

“And if you are so capable of tracking this Queen what, exactly, does that make you?” Her teeth click against each word, attempting to play this game of wits and words with him, an effort she had never quite made for anyone else. Then she poses her question, hoping for once to disarm him as he is so adept at doing to her. For no more than a split second does she see something cross his face. Hurt? Concern? Fear? All there and gone again in the blink of an eye when his mischievous façade swipes it all clean once more.

He feigns nonchalance, something she knows him well enough now to notice. His works are as slick and smooth as the obsidian black fur that rolls across his lean body. He seeks to shock her with his words once more and now she has to wonder if that isn’t his own defensive measure. She had her teeth and he had his wits, what a pair they were. She gives him a laugh, heartfelt and barking if for no other reason than she knows that he needs it. He might be concerned that she would think less of him, knowing this handicap but it was quite the opposite.

At his final words she smiles, a devious smile curls across her black lips and she moves toward him now, her movement as lithe as they will ever be. “Such foolish gods,” she murmurs, circling once and eyeing him like she might a hare caught in the middle of a clearing, each daring the other to move first if only to see what he would do. Finally she lowering her form beside him, not close enough to touch but the tips of her long, brilliant fur might brush ends with his. Staring straight ahead she inhales deeply before exhaling every single molecule. Only then does she look at him, her wide head turning and fixing her blue and golden eyes on him. “You’ve never met him, but my brother is as dark as you, save for a patch of white over his right eye, a blue eye set therein with a gold eye on the other side. They said, when we were born, that the gods misplaced a part of him in me and me in him, but if it would make you whole I would gift it to you. For surely stories of a One-Eyed Queen of the Hunters would travel near and far for centuries.”

It is the only time she has ever spoken of her past and where she and her brother came from, and even now she is not sure what brought it out of other than the mere presence of Zaphkiel. She sighs again, shaking her head before looking back at him again, “I wonder when you will show me the truth behind your mythical stories and extravagant words.” For the first time she wants to know the true him, not the one he sees fit to show the world for she is sure the two are not one and the same.