Boartusk Heights upon return

comforted by one voice, addressed by another, agrippina offered a second bow. lower in the face of a thrumming power which electrified the air. at first she had not dared to glance up. she saw the pale shimmer of ethereal tresses in the earlymorn light and tried to steady limbs that had begun to shake.

then her eyes did raise, snared at once by the hue of the noblewoman's eyes, droplets of blood writhing in a crystal goblet of purest water.

i have come for mercy, agrippina breathed out, but this time it was far more humiliating. curling her paws against the velveteen grass beneath her claws, the wanderer sorted through what tattered fragments of her life she could offer. i am educated. but i am not too proud to do what is asked of me.

her blood! blue as that of the fine lady before her, but with no way to prove it.

and such things mattered so little. mattered nothing, not now.