(o) in praise of the sacred

The skies are black with lead-filled rain
a morbid painting on display

The man's avian cry is all that spares him from the lightning that builds in her veins, tickling harmlessly - for her, never for him - down her fingertips like running water. It tempers her just enough, assuming it to be merely an inquisitive corvidae, that the magic subsides right as his voice cuts through the storm. He is a mere ghost of a figure, dark and formless as he approaches. Atlas lowers his crown, mighty even in youth, and stamps a cloven hoof as a warning huff escapes his nostrils. Hotaru stays him with a gentle twist of her fingers. No matter how raw and exhausted she may feel, at least the man is kind. It makes her lip twist, wishing for once that people were not so fearless and cordial. That she would not feel guilty for letting her lightning strike down at his feet in warning. Instead she flexes her fingers and nudges the unicorn at her side, moving to put herself between the babe and the newcomer. Never can be too careful.

"Do you have healing salve or magic?" she calls sharply back at his faltering, the question that cuts through clearer the closer he moves. That, at least, is an answer unto itself. Both woman and unicorn are injured, and she has used her old and rusted knowledge to get the pair of them out of Halo lest the elements take them first. "We just arrived from Halo, the cold does not bother me but he is a babe." Each word seems wrung out from her, reluctant to give this stranger more information than necessitates, but aware that she has little other choice.

This is the night that young love died
Buried at each others sides