the girl, she's hiding horns; any

[Leokadia]

she got blood cold as ice
and a heart made of stone

Leokadia can picture herself telling Ciri everything there is to tell. Knows that given time she will. There won't be many words to say. They might mean nothing to the other mare, but she will listen. Leokadia knows this with only a few hours of acquaintance between them… Ciri likes the way she talks.

Do you like girls? The words slither over her brain, detached from the memory they come from and alive in her head, Brunhilde's voice becoming her own. Leokadia pulls away from the question, and drags her gaze away from Ciri's profile with effort.

"I will not make very good family, but if you want me to be I will never protest." She might have smiled then if she were someone else, but her real smiles do not come easily. There is a sound of it in her voice however, around the edges of her strange even-toned way of speaking.

She overwhelms herself, it is too much talking, and too much being herself with someone else. Leokadia just wants to run, certain that she will cease to be so conscious of herself after doing so and will be able to travel alongside Ciri again without fixating on their connection until it appears to be anything but an unexpected friendship in bloom. If they can run together it will not seem too strange, the nip is intended as an invitation but it is not enough to make Ciri understand the cremello's sudden sprinting away.

The little mare doesn't stop, not until Ciri and her longer stride overtake her, spinning to a stop in her path. Dust whorls up and clings to Leokadia's wet pelt as she tries to slow down before she ends up colliding with Ciri. It is only by unfurling her vast pallid wings that she manages to brake, ending her headlong charge inches from Ciri.

Her wings shadow the two of them, flared out and still, a half moon of creamy feathers shielding the pair of them from whatever lay behind them. Their breathing echoes against that wall of plumage, the only thing louder than the blood rushing in the winged mare's ears. Leokadia's eyes are wide, her pupils dilated and very dark with just a ring of brightness around them, eclipsed. Her neck quivers a little beneath Ciri's soft touch, and she cannot help the way she arches it, dropping her chin toward the touch, and breathing in the sweetness of Ciri's breath. "I am. I will. I am here."

but she keeps me alive
she's the beast in my bones

Leokadia

@Ciri