Of course she was the first one to find them. She has been insatiable. Like a hound-servitor trapped indoors, staring out the window, yearning to run. So she does. She runs. She climbs. She clambers. Yes, she clambers— up and down and over. She is, ostensibly, a scout. What she is more often is an adventurer. The nature of this valley is such that wherever she goes, she can look around and find something new, interesting, intriguing, underneath a shining pink sky.

It must be what she was made for. Her sword swings in a scabbard slung over one shoulder. Her bare limbs burst with freckles. Her gloves are sure, her boots grip steady. She catches herself running her fingers over the dust-catching scarf, which feels… right. In its right place, just like she’s in hers.

When her satchel is empty of ration bars (and full of interesting rocks and sun-faded trinkets), she navigates back to… to security. To a scowl and a wagging tail-tip. Look at these stones, she offers; look at this pin for your shadow-hair, look at this scarab-ring for your soft-finger. Let me give you the way forward; let me be your guide through the valley and the mire, up the shelves and down the stairs. Just give me a kiss. Just tell me I did good. Just wear my gift, just once.

Tell me that my body is useful, and I am good at using it, and what brings me joy is worth doing.

So of course she finds them first; she approaches them with her sword in her hand, at first, and then sheathed once she comes close and sees the mania. The smiles, the sweat, the exhaustion— but without the joy. Just the obsession. Just the labor, and not for its own sake. And above them all stands Desire.

She offers her honored enemy an emphatic apotropaic gesture.

Then she is going here and there, there and here, jumping over ditches, steadying a handcart, offering a steadying hand, asking: do you want to leave? Do you want to come with us? I can’t quite say where we’re going, but it’s dreadfully important— don’t you want to come? (But wanting is the whole of it, and dooms her to failure.)

Finally, one stops, and considers a moment.

[i]Not yet. Not after all I have done to remain. When the harvest is done, he promised… I will have my reward. Everything I ever… everything. And that is enough to drown all the rest of them. Petty. Grasping. Unworthy. I alone am worthy, was ever…

…but thank you. Good luck, and here—[/i]

They offer her the weathered cloak-clasp. Jagged Ceronian bronze, the wolf’s head over clouds (unless they are the backs of sheep). A statement, and a weapon, and an impossibility. She closes her fingers around it, and they stand a little straighter for it.

[i]Let it see starlight again, and battle, and glory. Let the Azura remember who made them tremble. Let the universe remember me, who changed the course of stars and determined the fate of trillions with the lifting and lowering of a fan.[/i]

Their teeth flash, and she takes a step back despite herself, but, no, they are already stooping, lifting the grave-dirt onto their shoulder again. She touches the brooch to her breastbone, and presses a point into the skin, enough to dimple, as she watches the conqueror, the ruler, the insatiable, make their way up the pyramid again.

But their tail wags, tired but sure, and she clips the brooch to her scabbard. She has done what she can. Now all she can do is make it to the other side for their sake, too.