Cassiopeia's View The hand of Gods

The stranger turns his attention to her and briefly Ibis is afraid. The expression on his face is cold. The light in his eyes is a sombre carmine not unlike dried roses, an otherwise pleasant color, but it is not the shade she seeks. These are not the warmly lit embers of her husband; the face is wrong, too. Rugged and wild, but thickly set, bullish.

I-I... I'm—um, Ibis stammered, not sure what to say. She wants to apologize. Something about this moment feels intimate, but maybe she is only intimidated because of his greater size and unfamiliar stoicism. The pervasive smell hanging in the air feels as if it fights its way in to her lungs, down her throat. It burns.

Do you know what is going on? What happened? The voice that emerges from her feels out of place; it is not the brave sound of an intrepid young messenger or the harpy call of a struggling mother, but something altogether different. Ibis doesn't recognize herself and it startles her.

She does not know much about the wolves upon the mountain, but she thinks of the loss all the same, empathizing. Wondering if this man lost something dear to him — but from the way he reveled in the fell glow of distant destruction, Ibis doubted that initial belief.