one pawpad is cracked and bleeding, leaving here and there a rusted stain on the earth. she finds herself rarely within the Sunspire's borders save to patrol them. still, it is the first time she has come down the south of the range; walked the edges of the lake that exists only a few miles from the dark blight on the horizon. she watches it now as she stills on the water's edge, twilight heavy with the sounds of insects and warbling night birds. 

it is smaller. the darkness no longer seems to reach from it but merely to seeth, simmer quietly. she regards it, wondering idly at what has her tread so close after so long. breeze pushes across the lake from the north, bringing with it the scent of ash and pushing ripples across the surface, the girl made still.
@Damien

blood & fear
the words bloom to mind suddenly, violently, and she remembers. there is no trace of the same recognition in Damien as she stifles her own, no trace of the raving man from the cavern. this is something else, something constructed and solid, and to his question, she dips her muzzle a fraction in silent affirmation. her forepaw twists upward a fraction, proffering the burning laceration, small as it is; insignificant as it is. 

she can scent the wood on his pelt. and so it still stands, even if Vaati does not lead them. she wants to know more - do the deformed pups still live? does the witch lurk somewhere in her self-named hell? her paw shifts back onto the earth, she straightens. "it's nothing." she waits, sharply curious and dimly wary, viridant gaze finding for a moment the silver one that had, in her memories, hosted nothing but madness.

it is obvious there is no recognition there; only an absence of madness. "do not trouble yourself."  stiff and courteous, as if they were strangers, as if they did not come from the same dark place. it is this that has her swing her muzzle back toward the wood, festering like an open sore on the horizon. 

"does blackfeather still stand?"  a simple, casual question where it not for the stiffness of her voice. but to a peek at her cards; she knows intimate things about the male and she wonders if the question will bring to light memories, violence, suspicion. perhaps only a simple answer, but there is a hint of tension in her shoulders that speaks of her readiness should his reaction be any of the former.