third horseman.

Making super niche content catering only to me, but I decided to draw the Old Hillsbrad Foothills - Renault Mograine and Sally Whitemane interaction - however put them closer to the ages they have during the same event in "Ashbringer" where I assume Renault is ~15 and so is she. Also baby Darion who is a kid and he was present for the creation of The Ashbringer.

If Sally may waste efforts ( and blood --- so much blood ) on Zoen’s behalf, it is only right she suffer that fate in turn.

Another tug of the thread.

“ Suppose you weren’t so clever as you think --- what then, hmm? Think I have much use of a Horseman without a head? It’s not Hallow’s Eve, Whitemane, and if you start speaking in rhymes I’m confiscating your tongue. So unbelievably stupid. ”

( Sentimental. Unthinking. Slavishly devoted.  Whose blood could she be but yours? )

always accepting ic asks ♡

— @acherys

The needle pierces her flesh, leads the thread through it, a repetitive ritual to close her wounds; yet to call the feeling of it pain, even after the harsh tug, seems like an exaggeration of what it is. She knows what pain feels like nigh as well as what it looks like to inflict it upon others. This is gentle in comparison.

Blood could mend her seamlessly enough, easily enough, and Sally knows it as much as she knows so does Zoen. The lifeforce of their enemies, so freely spilled and drained, was just as readily used to sustain her in battle — even when her deeds were reckless, too caught up in the Deathlord's defense to calculate what was unneeded risk.

Foolish, she is chastised, though in truth it felt necessary. There is no raising the dead by willing the Light to restore body and spirit any longer; her powers are not limitless. Blood was all there was to offer. Blood, and the potential sacrifice in the altar of an existence more important than hers.

If the Deathlord wishes to see to her injuries, she would not deny him, futile endeavor that it was. No annoyance is dedicated to her companion as she watches the hand wield the needle, an odd gesture of care (is there any other name for it, the act of devoting one's time to closing another's wounds?). Another sharp pull, another biting remark; Sally smiles as she listens, and that is perhaps the greater mistake — there is no disregard she could show the other and mean. Oh, she takes the Deathlord seriously when need be; but the irritation displayed only makes her endeared.

"You needn't be so afraid for me," Yet amusement and even jest are tempered by the lingering effects of battle. There is no heart beating in her chest any longer, but the sensation, were she to describe it, is not unlike the rush of blood and adrenaline in one's veins that followed combat in life. The clarity while in the thick of it is much the same: a clear goal and a clear enemy, something to be protected and something to be exterminated; the hunger for violence may be intrinsic part of what she is, now, but it is not foreign. Its absence may not have led her to insanity before, yet she had reveled in the heretics' suffering as if it had been sustenance, when her lungs still needed air.

The zeal, too, had always been hers. One could not have picked her amongst many to be raised as the third of four, chosen specifically for her devotion, and expect any less. That ardor is what makes her strong. "Those were paltry risks to defeat those who threatened you," It is a common thing for their kind, to tune down displays of emotion, to present themselves as coldly as the rime that follows in their wake. Sally cares not for it, even in pretense; when her eyes meet Zoen, it is obvious she sees something more.

What had she ever been without a higher purpose?

"They learned their lesson well enough," she eases in a tone somewhat more complacent; commitment to finding a middle ground. Learn may not be quite the word, when the inner workings of the grave were all their enemies would truly find; Sally will take the poetic license, though she dares not dabble in rhyme even for the sake of provocation. "My head remains very well attached to my body, and so does yours, which matters far more."