Lion Head Mesa Vasílissa

following the attack by nyra, the arrival by merrick, and so much being up in the air for the woman, satsu had kept to the catacombs. if not within her own private quarters then the wellspring with tamar attending, or another of the more spacious rooms beneath the earth with help from jawahir to organize things; much as she loathed the coyote, satsu could not do everything herself.

she had stepped out for a breath of fresh air, telling tamar to stay behind - she would only be a moment - when something red like the mesa stone, moving rapidly, caught in her eye. it was not a man she knew; but he moved as if he knew the landscape well, and he had the cut of a man who belonged among the stone.

satsu was too surprised to be frightened. she continued to watch as his shape grew larger and he tread closer, up and around one of the ridgelines of the mesa, until he was standing with the sun at his back, a black shape haloed in red. it was then that she shrank back to the shadow of the halloway, saying nothing.