i never said that i would be your lover
i never said that i would be your friend
i never said that i would take no other
Kensa has never lusted for power. She has followed her desires with abandon whenever possible but as the years roll on she finds herself less and less able to be the hedonist she has so long believed herself to be. Responsibility and her ever increasing ties to others create a web upon which she must carefully dance lest she become tangled within and lose her way. There are times when she wonders if she is not capable of maintaining it. Others are too bound up in the rules and moral constructs that suffocate love and freedom. Kensa is becoming like them, forced into the mold by the nature of her position. No, that isn’t entirely true. She is not becoming like the others, she is just not as naive as she once was and is therefore unable to turn aside from anger or vengeance, or jealousy.
Jealousy like that which flared when Litotes announced he would be King to Dawn’s Queen. She did not care a bit about the trysts, or his little snowflake faced offshoots running all over (none as beautiful as her own children). She has had plenty of men in her bed and her favorite son does not belong to her husband, she enjoys her freedom though it has never been discussed between them. She expects other lovers, other loves but never a union. Never his being King to another Queen. A Queen who might have killed him on the Tephran field of battle. She is proud of course, here is his vengeance realized, and without any harm coming to her friend. Kensa had gone to their little announcement and worn her placid face and then left again with no interest in seeing who would squabble over the scraps of the wretched Cove. How she had laughed on her way home! The music of her mad joy bouncing through the canyon all around her.
Not long ago she had felt the slightest twinge of guilt, a sensation of pain for how her husband might truly feel about her freely given affections. What nonsense! Let him go about his separate life, and she hers. He a King and she a rogue, a hood who pillages a treasury and sneaks into his bed on the same night. What fun this may come to be. With roguishness in mind an idea develops, allowing her to refocus on what she wants for Hyaline.
She must first begin with her friends, those few who follow her, curious about the cause to which she has called them. Freedom, trouble making, whatever it might be, it is time they began. Within Hyaline she gathers her little group, calls them together without ceremony so that they may meet in a little knot of flicking ears and sidelong looks. She does not appreciate grand meetings and her posture is relaxed when they all stand together. “I think it’s time we get to know our neighbors if any of you would like to venture out on visits. Hyaline would benefit from taking a few guests, but first we should go out and see who we would like to have spend some time with us.” Her smile is sweetly impish. “We will say nothing of this to anyone of course. Let us begin with diplomatic visits, introduce ourselves as members of Hyaline and learn more about the lands outside of the East. When you return we will gather and share what we have learned and who we have met. A little disruption, innocent bit of fun. They wouldn’t keep their guests over long, and they would be comfortable in beautiful Hyaline. A vacation really. Maybe it will become a bit of a tradition, a spot of good-natured chaos.
