Meadow

Her laughter (if one could call it that- a little puff of breath that came a little too fast; a swift, sharp crinkle of her eyes) was as hard-won and delicious as ever, the thick fur of her pearly white brow rippling in the breeze, making it hard to judge the expression beneath. She let him close, as she had before, long ago, but the gleam of her eyes was a little different from that time. Barely-contained violence under a bristling demeanor had faded behind a smooth, opaque surface- and Ma’alruin did not think it was because the violence was gone.

No, she’d simply honed her blade to something subtler, and burnished her beaten shield until it blinded the eye to the warrior behind it. His inky stare dripped down her stoic harlequin body, examining appreciatively her fine-tuned body language, the keen edges she’d carefully hidden. The black wings spreading down her hips and the jagged beak whose open jaws covered her eyes formed, at his height, a shadowy, swooping raven, the wind rippling her thick mane into reaching talons. ‘Some ermine,’ he thought, amused and admiring.

“Ohh, bitter isn’t the first word that comes to mind,” though it certainly did come to mind. The Ingrid he’d so enjoyed grazing his fingernail up the bristling spine of before had been bitter to the point of acidity, spitting words sour enough to spoil milk when prodded. A pity for her that he enjoyed the taste. She may have grown more controlled in the years apart, but bitterness was not easily shed once acquired. Her sweet nerium aroma and pink petal lips didn’t change the toxins waiting on her tongue. While his thoughts had strayed, her own seemed to be doing their own wanderings, and he was shaken back to the present by the tangent.

“I would not have expected to find a desert fox so far north. Salem too dusty for your liking?”

“Ahh, Salem…” The idly reminiscent tip of his head didn’t hide the curl of his lip, his deep but often untowardly convivial voice losing its beneficent luster. “I’ve visited, in the past. Dust is a minor irritant; dogma, however… Well, we didn’t get along, Salem and I.” Brushing the sneer from his black mouth as easily as thumbing a smear of blood from his lip, he smiled amiably and continued, “Besides, cold is a small price to pay for the North’s many charms. I covet them,” his black eyes crinkled, “and perhaps I covet the cold as well.”

He let the pause stretch just a little too long before casually continuing.

“But you must have had your own share of adventures without me. Has my dear acerbic friend found a place- or people-” this murmured low and conspiratorial and with a wink of bladed red lashes- “she dislikes little enough to call home?”