I would not be here. Beltane's face fell, her head shook slowly, utter sympathy splashed across the wildness of her features. She did not believe the words or rather, she did not wish to believe it. Whatever darkness she had felt festering inside the shell that was Blackthorne, she did not feel it within Natiya. Her shadow was little more than the shadow one might expect from any other wolf - it was not stained with the crimson of bloodshed nor the oiliness of chaos. The sympathy was fleeting though and she dared not speak lest Natiya feel a further need to prove such a thing; after all, she could still be dangerous even if that danger was manufactured.
She had a sweet voice though. Beltane felt the tension break, the aura of the girl having settled into the marshes as she spoke her name. Natiya. Natiya, Natiya. Beltane repeated it over in her mind, unsettled by the name in stark contrast to her brother's own. But to be unsettled was seldom enough to put Beltane at a pause and so, she continued to listen to the chanting in the moors, the whispers that brushed atop the reeds and stillwater. She laughed beneath her breath at the woman's sudden recoil but nonetheless, she respected the request. She moved away, allowed the space to settle between them before her dead ear twitched towards the boneyard and her lip twitched in response.
She pivoted to face Natiya then, her face fleetingly bewildered before she grinned.