Tessa sits cross-legged in the canopy shade of Reverie's wing. She wets her thumb with the tip of her tongue, then uses the moisture to mold the wet white clay in place of the artists vision. She uses her dagger to carve simple designs into the clay, and begins the monotonous work of imbedding the designs with strands of fine woven golden metal silks: a camp fire, a dragons tooth, a rifle shell, an amethyst crystal...
Reverie turns to watch. On this morning, her head is the size of a carriage. She is vibrant purple with a yellow and blue crest, and her pupils are waning crescents within her lidless eyes. After a time she says, "Pater-alah is dead, but you make him no headstone."
Tessa looks up, struck by the novelty of the moment. She studies Reverie, and swallows the first thought and words that come to her, Peter-alah's bones are whispering at this very moment on Enkilia. Instead, she asks, "You mourn him?"
That crescent-pupil contracts as thin as the finest sickle's edge. "No."
Having found the true answer, Tessa resumes her work. A while passes in silence until she says, "Ahnkansata have no traditions."
"No."
"No emotion."
"No."
Tessa bites off a piece of the metallic silk. "Why did you allow my friend to spirit you away?"
"You know this truth, wise Queen. He is so pulpy."
"Mm. And why do you roost here when there is rich hunting beyond my..."
"Shelf."
"Beyond my... Shelf..."
"Truly I say to you" - here Tessa hides a small smile - "the Broken have entrusted What-Will-Be to you their Queen, and thus they are all dry as stone to me. Pleasantly so, for wetness is sweet meat, but dry stone is a friendly basking-place. You, you are as hot and flat as the plateaus of Pamienope, and your heat stirs my blood to move."
Tessa nods and says nothing more, though she thinks a while on the three-parted curse used by Ankansata to mark their prey, the shackle between Appellated and Appalling. When she finishes her memorial stone, she unfolds herself and rises to stretch. Reverie does the same, and as she relaxes, she spreads and shuffles and shakes her pinions until they all lie straight.
The land around them is shapeless nothing and barren chunks of rock that will become an aubade to those left behind; Tessa will honor her enemies and friends alike in stone, she will build grand cathedrals veneered in amethyst and agate.
Reverie butts her rounded snout under Tessa hand and waits.
"Let us find Argynvost," Tessa says.
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