Anopticyte leaned against a tree on the border of the Sunflare-Shadow border and watched the sunny grasslands to the west of his forest home.Shadow and Sunflare had been at war for longer than even Ani's eldest siblings had been alive. Hating Sunflare was a way of life for the Shadow--why, even, no one was sure. Maybe they were too goody-two-hooves. Maybe they made other people feel bad for feeling those basic Star instincts--greed, vanity, spite, lust. Maybe they just...had been fighting for so long that they couldn't stop, like when you're running too fast down a hill and couldn't stop yourself. Maybe it was like that. Maybe it was something more. Maybe it was a way for the Stars who joined the Shadow to prove themselves. Or maybe Sunflare was just an easy target. They always had been. They had an army...barely. It was about half of the size of the Sunflare, and it didn't have Retinadeath at its back. You would charge the gates of hell just to get away from Retinadeath sometimes. She was a vicious mare, and the fact that she was also Ani's mother barely factored into it except to say that yes, Ani had experience with his mother. So very, very much experience.
Ani shifted and squinted into the distance. Still no sign of Cometary. The spy could only slip away from the Sunflare once a month; the rest of the time, he relayed information back to a messenger, and that messenger was Anopticyte. Hey, it was a job. He wasn't lounging around back home waiting for something to happen and trying to figure out which soldier he wanted to take for a mate (easy: none of them. They were all his cousins.) He was doing something useful, and hopefully that would earn him enough good reputation and recognition that he would be allowed to pick his own jobs, and not have to report back to some other slob, like his obnoxious stepfather or his creepy half-brother.
Something moved while Ani was distracted, and when he turned his head to see what it was, his heart stopped in its tracks. Standing there, almost perfectly blended into the shadows at the edge of the forest was Ciaradh.
Ciaradh was a Sunflare champion...kind of. That is to say, he was a warrior and he lived in Sunflare territory. Technically he was a Sunflare champion, but in practice...
He had stabbed Saltic, and he had broken Ruadh's jaw once and leg twice. He had almost succeeded in sinking his long horn into Ani's own father, Osteocyte. There was the story about Irishstorm underestimating him and him hounding her back to the border, and everyone knew that he would regularly sneak onto Shadow territory to beat up lone knights on patrol. Ani had no combat training, none at all--he was a Dark Courtier, for shade's sake, not a knight! And Ciaradh could see him, plain as day. He was watching Anopticyte, his own yellow eyes locking right on to Ani's red ones. He swallowed and tried to make his lean against the tree look casual. "Morning," he said around a tongue suddenly dry and thick. "Looks like a nice day." The weather, Ani? Really? But it was the best he could come up with on short notice, so it would have to do. Anything to try to get the upper hand on this conversation...
