i feel a bad moon rising - diplomats

[magnus]

I wanna give you wild love, the kind that never slows down
I wanna take you high up let our hearts be the only sound

Whatever he expects in this moment, it’s not this.

It’s not the sudden influx of fear, rushing into an otherwise calm conversation like a sudden gasp. At her exclamation, Magnus puts his hoof back down, settling into his weight in a similar fashion as Lepis and turns her head toward the purple filly. He doesn’t dismiss her fears, even though he doesn’t understand them, but his gold-flecked eyes grow dark, thoughtful—concerned. For a second, he considers what she is saying before he turns his head slower back to the mare in question, listening to Lepis’ rebuttal.

So much has happened in his absence, so many things he just doesn’t have a way of understanding.

During his last reign, Sylva had been a quiet kingdom. Calm. It mostly kept to itself. He has no way of fully grasping the fear that radiates from his companion. He turns back to Lepis, adjusting slightly to shield the child more. “I clearly have several pieces of history missing,” his smile is slightly bitter, as it always is when he discusses the time lost. The way he slipped in and out of it so often, losing himself in the years that mean so little to him anymore—months passing in the seeming blink of an eye.

“How can you assure us that whatever atrocities were committed in Sylva’s name will not be made under your rule?” A pause, his face contemplative but not cruel. “If you are a kingdom that works for the highest bidder, how can you assure us that you will not take a contract where senseless violence is the cost that must be paid?” He has seen enough in his lifetime to be wary of a kingdom with blood on its hands—it had taken a long time for him to overcome his prejudice of the Valley—but he also knows that the kingdom one soul inherits does not always remain the same. If she was determined to change the course of Sylva to something better, than who was he to say she couldn’t? Who was he to deny her?

For a moment, he breaks his eye contact with her to look to Karat.

“I know you’re scared—and it looks like you have every right to be—but we can’t live in fear. If Tephra is to remain a sanctuary then we can’t hold our neighbors at arm’s length when they tell us they have good intentions. We have to trust,” he holds her gaze, “and that sometimes takes the most courage of all.”

I wanna go where the lights burn low and you're only mine

@[Karat] @[Lepis]