Nyimara watches as a silent bystander. For a brief moment, a private word is shared between the two strangers that once more familiarizes the silver haired witch with that familiar ache she had long buried. ’Bjorn’ unbidden his name comes to mind and without meaning to the tangled web of hatred and fury parts to allow her invisible fingers to tenderly caress the syllables and the picture it paints. He is there with her, his pink lips pressed into the concave of her throat and sending chills coursing through her veins. The ghostly memory warms her already sun-flushed form, the heat as fresh in her memories as the day he had embraced her on the shores of the Ridge. She had been so sure of herself then, so sure of her adoration of him and likewise sure that it was something he felt too. Though she never understood it, she yearned for his eyes alone and the sight of his coddling embrace with Siobhan had torched the image to cinders. Like these two strangers, she had given such devotion and what had it done for her?

’Better off.’ the beast hisses, its voice shredding the image of the smoky stallion in her mind’s eye and returning her to present company. Her dark head is given a shake, ridding her of the remnants of the memory’s touch. Depthless ooids peer out from beneath the thick veil of her silver white forelock, narrowing slightly as the attention of the star-kissed stallion returns to her. ’Atair….’ he calls himself, the name foreign yet familiar to her own tongue. A single brow raises suspiciously when he explains that it was his family that had once called the Dunes home. Despite herself, Nyimara cannot withhold the snort of disapproval. An here she thought Joachim’s appearance and prompt departure would be the last of the worries she would have to face from long forgotten monarchs.

Atair cranes his neck to touch the obsidian mare at his side as he introduces her. ’Eness’ the name replays itself in her mind as mentally she logs the information into memory. The apology does much to still the tension in her body language and Nyimara shifts her stance to a more comfortable position. An apology. Was that so hard to ask? Solomon… Cullen… Faolain (well maybe not her).... Ysabel… all of them could take some extensive lessons from Atair as far as she was concerned. A ghostly smile tugs the corners of her lips upwards as she inclines her own head slightly in acknowledgement. That would do.

This time it is Eness who speaks, stepping forward to once more bring herself shoulder to shoulder with her mate. A single audit swivels as Nyimara allows her near black gaze to stray to the mare. She was an exotic thing, pretty in her dark skin dusted in white. Her dark eyes are filled with spirit and even delicate as she appeared, Nyimara knows that were things turn south, she would prove a handful. Something that no doubt Atair would find out later if there was anything to be read in the look that passes between them. She too offers apologies and whatever skepticism the mahogany woman had felt only moments ago evaporates. She speaks of twins and the news immediately draws the beast to attention despite only moments ago growing bored of the conversation as a whole. Twins…. Children… she was in need of a child. A replacement for her daughter if she was to tangle Fell into her web of lies and free herself of the chains he tried to impose upon her. Yet when Eness mentions that they are grown children, the beast lets a huff escape, one that is shared by Nyimara. Her silver white tail flicks dismissively against her heels, oh well… it wasn't like they were standing here ripe for the picking anyway. A pleasant mask falls into place as the silver haired woman arches her neck proudly, ”Salem welcomes the young and the wild. My own daughter is much the same.” she purrs, glancing up the sloping Dunes behind her to where, somewhere beyond her view, Rhaenys was no doubt playing another of her spying games. She glances back at Atair now, ”Now that you are reunited, is it that you had hopes of remaining?”