#kyrrin

Suixela studied the tarot card critically, her face set in what looked like the expression one might have when trying to decipher a potentially important message.

Releasing the card from her magical grip, Suixela slumped back on the pillow she was seated on with a sigh; the tarot card fluttering down onto the round wooden table.

“So, what do ‘ya think?” Hoary asked after a moment of staring at the card beside Suixela, sitting on her own pillow across from her.

“Well,” Suixela’s voice was monotone, almost despondent, and she had an unreadable expression as she continued to squint at the card, “it’s obviously a picture illustrating a winged Quillin fawn in the cradle of antlers—belonging to what I think might be the Twin Quasars— with a style meant to mimic stained-glass imagery.”

Hoary cocked her ear as she leaned forward to get a better look at the tarot card, “What do you mean you ‘think’ those might be the Twin Quasars? I might no longer believe in Stiletto and Haleshia, but even I’d seen their image in history books enough times to forever seer them into my retinas!”

Suixela shook her head slightly, still not looking away from the card on the table, “the image that the public believes to be what the Twin Quasars appearance is propaganda then.”

“What?” Hoary glanced up incredulously.

Suixela lifted a cloven hoof and tapped the card where the supposed godlike rulers of the Quadrupeds was depicted, “Haleshia and Stiletto don’t look like that.”

Hoary blinked slowly, leaning slowly back in her seat as the inevitable question was asked, “Then what do they look like?”

She hadn’t really believed that Suixela had been telling the truth that she knew Queen Haleshia personally, even studied under the mysterious ruler, it was just too ridiculous for the ex-soldier to accept, even if she had wings. But as time went on, and Hoary began to witness glimpses of the power Suixela was packing, and now the sudden appearance of this ominous tarot card, she was starting to believe her.

Suixela seemed taken aback by Hoary’s question, and for a moment she merely blinked at the Kyrrin; tilting her head and cocking one ear askew in a circular motion and chewing her bottom lip. It was an odd quirk the doe displayed when searching the recesses of her mind for memories long past.

“They look…not like that.” She responded vaguely, cocking her head to the other side as if that might help, “they look more like” —with a flicker of magic, Suixela levitated a blank scroll along with a quill and inkwell onto the table and began sketching out a rough image— “they look more like this.”

For a moment, Hoary squinted at the rough sketch; it looked nothing like what the Twin Quasars were normally portrayed to be. The Queen Haleshia and Queen Stiletto she knew from historical paintings and descriptions always portrayed the Queens as being giant versions of the Kyrrin and Quillin, possessing a crown of mighty horns and antlers that resembled the roots of ancient trees, and eyes that glowed with a nebulous yet benevolent nature. Whose very coats emanated a soft etherial light that bathed their subjects in the comforting embrace of knowing that they would forever protect them.

This rough sketch, made by a young, winged Quillin who claimed to have personally KNOWN one of the Queens and to have only met the other on a few rare occasions, depicted something much darker and disturbing than what the history books claimed.

They looked monstrous, their features— based off of the rough sketch—seemed as though they were mechanical, like machines made to somewhat resemble their more life-like counterparts. Both beings possessed long necks which had tube-like cables connecting to either side as well as a third row of cables connecting straight into where their spines would be. Their faces where drawn in black, giving the implication of them being more like masks or helmets rather then their actual faces. More cables and tubed wiring connected into the masks, channeling all the way up until the edge of the paper. Suixela had drawn only the Queens’ heads and neck, as there wasn’t enough room on the narrow scroll to properly capture whatever other bio-mechanical engineering such an image would reveal.

The two stared in silence at the image, Hoary looking from the tarot card’s depiction of the diarchs to Suixela’s drawing and back again. The only sound in the room for several moments was the background noise of water rushing down the waterway in the cavern.

“So, what should we do about the card,” Hoary finally asked, her mind stubbornly locking down and refusing to acknowledge what Suixela had shown her, if it were anyone els, she would have instantly called bullshit on such a far-fetched claim. Which was weird, considering her beliefs of the Twin Quasars were all but moot after the world went to war and no godly beings had answered their suffering subjects’ cries.

Yet a small part of her that she had buried beneath years of anger and stubbornness still wanted to believe that once upon a time the Twin Quasars did exist and were as loving and kind as the legends said. It was the part of her that reminded her of what her brother believed in, and this sketch of Suixela’s threatened to break that small part of her. But she didn’t want a repeat of last time, where Suixela ended up flying away in tears, and Hoary left once again with herself and her stewing guilt and regret.

So, for now, she would school her emotions for the sake of their friendship and her peace of mind. After all, unless Suixela presented Hoary with more substantial proof, this rough drawing meant nothing.

“I don’t know,” Suixela replied, levitating the card and placing it in one of her satchels, “If it’s important it’ll come back to bite us, I suppose.”

Art & Story © Skiberypuppy / PeculiurDreams