Any stranger amid this burial ground of this empire would do well to hear that story of hers — but Aranya will swallow it. Chew it raw until there’s nothing left of any memory. Let them decipher her no more. Still, that history has a habit of returning to the surface, undisturbed. Like snow refusing to melt with summer’s sun. As stubborn as her blood. She doesn’t need to see his face to recognize him. How it was somehow the voice that he held when she was upset with scraped knees back when she was ten, yet entirely void of all memory. Detached, distant. She moves easily, with a silent foot — pulled from experience of becoming prey, the lounge area’s table in between them. “You and I are never alone. You should know this.” Murmured without firmness, her words are water wetting stone like an early rain. Almost a chastisement, motherly in nature — but the hesitation rubs the syllables in the wrong way. She tenses. She can’t make out his face yet, but she’s aware of the coldness of it. She’s seen it before, in the mirror, many times after she returned. Winterbled. Like a form of the soul frozen in time, mid-torture. Uncertainty floods her system, a nervousness that begins in the back of her throat and vocalizes itself with a slight hum of confusion. A step to the side, hand almost reaching a small statue that sits on a shelf, carved jade. Heavy enough to sedate, but she pauses. It’s harder to be vicious when the wolf looks so similar to her kin. “He is not home. I think I will make us tea.” No questions, she is aware of how tightly absent her words are — somewhere in her mind there’s a timer soon to be set off. “I thought you were dead, Taya.” A snap of her heart, it dulls the next jerk of movement, fingers wrapping around the switch for the lights above them. Pure darkness evades them, while the lights are off from inside the condo, the neon swelling of entertained outside illuminates the room in a crescent shape. Reds and blues washing over her arms and hands, the jade statue just out of reach. “Are you still?”