WITH SOMBER THOUGHT

It was not of Jendayi’s nature to judge men by their size. Far too often had she seem the calm be the bears, and the vicious be the foxes—but there was always something undeniably daunting about staring into the eyes of one who was as domineering as a man such as Amon. It sparked something in her heart, fluttering wings of a trapped bird desperate to escape, its feathers tickling her breast and her throat, tempting her paws to spurn, to take her away—not out of fear, perhaps, but out of something far more complicated, something indescribable, as if he were a relic to be preserved and watched from afar. The moon to her sun – such blissful opposite, right from the mouths of mothers to their cubs: she of gold eyes, and he of icy blue. Jendayi looks upon him now in his entirety, and even with her racing heart she finds herself unfaltering yet still, subdued, perhaps, by the might of this moment.

It is only his voice that breaks the aching silence. Only a guess, he admits. Smart guess. Perhaps the wintry winds still carried upon her pelt, and perhaps the thickness of it had been enough to give it away. Perhaps he truly was some sort of spirit come to guide her—how ironic it would be if it were, for so long Jendayi had pushed aside her past beliefs in order to move on (a thing akin to treason in her birthland), that it would be the spirits to come chase her down and fetter her, punish her. She almost feels the overwhelming urge to reach forward, to touch him just once, to make sure he was real. However, she stays her paw. “That must have been quite a sight,” she responds, and quirks a slender brow. She could not imagine him rolling about in the flowers—certainly, his weight would be enough to crush all the berries in the shrubs underneath him. It was entirely unbelievable.

My name is Amon Abraxas. She had gone so long without speaking her own name, without even thinking it, that she had all but forgotten how important titles were. She remembered she’d had one once—and it wasn’t Jendayi. “I am Jendayi,” she responds quietly after his own introduction, and goes on to listen to his own recount; and his title. It seems in one fell swoop Jendayi’s list of acquaintances grew from none to all royals. First an Heir, now a King. “I’m pleased to hear I’ve not been trespassing. I am just a wanderer, and tend to avoid…stepping on any toes. It’s not often I venture this far south—I did not even know this place existed.” Lying is your greatest sin, Jendayi. But she was good at it. It made things easier to forget if she played the role of past-less traveler. It made it easier to move on.

However, she had been fickle to assume she would not have to face it as often as she did. Each turn brought with it a new face, and each new face was just as curious as the last—she could not remain nameless and faceless for as long as she’d hoped.