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  • Beqanna

    COTY

    Assailant -- Year 226

    QOTY

    "But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura


    given this one world - Sloene
    #1
    Her interest in the kingdom is minimal, but as she finds herself without immediate plans to depart the seashore, the green-eyed mage chooses to invest in at least some minor activity. Her promise to Hestia hadn't been entirely empty, but the genie's idea of acceptable amount of time to complete a task is probably quite a bit different than the black queen's.

    It had taken her a solid three months, but as the nature of her entire task is secrecy, there is no need to share that fact with anyone. It's not as though she couldn't do the entire thing herself in a few hours. She could, obviously, but that would require an amount of focus that she's not at all amenable with. The less intense effort the better, she knows, and what less involved thing is there than having others do the work for her?

    That had been the base motivation for her conversations with Lewana and Porcia, at least. This third meeting, perhaps it will be a bit more intriguing. Sloene had been less eager than the others to spill her secrets, and Djinni has always been fond of secrets, especially those that are well-kept.

    She gives @[Sloene] a bit more personal space than she had the others, desiring herself the minimally acceptable social distance from the grullo mare.

    "Where are you from?" She asks curiously, as though they are picking up on a previous conversation. "Who taught you the skills you mentioned earlier, at the kingdom meeting?" There is nothing in the dun mare's expression to suggest she finds this at all out of the ordinary. She settles her weight into the sandy soil at her feet and waits for an answer.
    D J I N N I
    genie | rose gold tobiano dun | trickster
    #2
    lady, runnin' away to the riptide
    taken away to the dark side

    Her perch near the edge of one of Nerine’s craggy cliff faces is not quite close enough to be considered precarious, and she is staring down at the ground below with a single-minded intensity that she has very rarely exhibited. Sochi, far down below meeting with Scorch and Hestia and the delegates from Hyaline believes that her mother has no idea she is to leave so soon - she wants to leave without saying goodbye. The little grulla mare may allow her daughter the seemings of this independence, but she will watch the exchange from afar and wonder when her filly grew so independent, and who will be guiding her continued growth in Hyaline.

    When someone appears out of absolutely no where into the space beside her, Sloene jerks her head that direction and side-steps her haunches away from the other mare, exhaling on a startled snort even as she stops just short of actually stepping over the edge of the cliff. It's calculated - she could have failed to shy away, but that would have been more suspicious. Everything her foster-mothers had taught her was focused on being as normal as she could manage, and as inconspicuous. "You startled me," she accuses in a light, lyrical tone, but without any heat behind it. She turns away from the scene playing out below with great reluctance, and takes in the pretty little pink mare before her through wide, guileless silver eyes. She recognizes the mare from the meeting - Hestia had looked to this mare when she spoke of the spies, though Djinni had seemed to decline the offer. This meeting tells Sloene that all may not be as it seems.

    She's not immediately inclined to share any more of her secrets with this near-stranger than she had wanted to speak aloud at the meeting, but the questions the mage asks are innocuous, so she responds after only a moment of hesitation. "I'm from nowhere," she says, glancing to the side to confirm that Sochi is still far below with the others. "I was an orphan, raised in a herd-land by two mares, Nera and Branka. They trained all of us, honing whatever our natural skills were." Training them to use their magics, really, hoping to place them in Kingdoms and then leverage their foster-children later for whatever their long-range plans were. It just happened that Sloene didn't have any special talents, and at first they had been at a loss for what to teach her. The many Kingdom representatives and trainers they brought in overlooked her, focused on her many galaxy-colored Carnage-sired magically-inclined foster-siblings. That was when they realized that her very plainness might be a skill in itself. Another not-really covert glance down at Sochi reveals nothing of interest (what was she expecting? mostly, she just wants to watch when Sochi inevitably departs) and she looks back at Djinni, with an apologetic little smile. "Are you a mother, Djinni?"

    SLOENE
    I've got a lump in my throat
    cause you're gonna sing the words wrong
    #3
    Her position as the mistress of whispers is a precarious one, but Djinni is finding that she rather enjoys it. Her responsibilities add a layer of complexity to their life on the seashore. Each morning, when they separate and Walter takes to the skies to tend to his tasks, Djinni now has someplace to go as well. She no longer is confined to walking the seashore in endless loops or experimenting - how far of a fall the equine body can withstand was her most recent discovery..

    Is this what Walter had felt like when he’d become attached to Nerine?

    He had always had the Chamber, throughout the entirety of their existence. He still smells like pine to the golden mare, even if that is mostly memory. He now has the iron grey shores of Nerine, and Djinni supposes that she has a bit of that now too.

    Her intentions are somewhat different than those of the golden champion, but they are not working entirely in opposition.

    Sloane does not jump away as Djinni arrives, but she does give an acceptably startled snort. It is not long before Djinni can tell that her attention is more on the going-on below than their conversation, and Djinni takes a step closer to the edge to peer over. Below, there is a small gathering, one that includes the Queen.

    Uninteresting.

    Djinni turns her attention back to Sloene, and the grullo mare answers her question with only minor hesitation. The explanation of her background is unremarkable, but Djinni’s sea green eyes narrow at the mention of the mares who raised Sloene.

    ”My sister was always good at keeping secrets,” she says mildly, ”I can assuming she and Branka taught you a great many things, some of which I doubt you’ll ever share.” It is an intriguing thing, coming across another immortal. Perhaps Sloene had not meant to reveal that particular bit of information, but in her defense, few others might be able to accurately age her by her origin story.

    Sloane looks down again at the gathering below, and at her question, Djinni looks more closely at the smaller figures. Yes, she decides, that bright blue blaze might belong to the filly that had been beside Sloene at the kingdom meeting, the one who had volunteered to go to Hyaline. That explains the unfamiliar females below, Djinni realizes, they are here for the foal exchange.

    ”My children are long grown,” She says in reply, blissfully unaware of the miniature life that stirs within her, ”But I remember that feeling.” She doesn’t name it, because it it more complicated than a single word. Bittersweet, proud, a little sad.
    #4
    lady, runnin' away to the riptide
    taken away to the dark side

    None of the Kingdoms of the old world had called to her. She’d visited them, of course, alongside the others, considered their merits, been encouraged to make a choice, but Sloene had held herself reserved. Not that some of them weren’t lovely, because they were, but they hadn’t been home. Home had been the quiet herdland her foster-mothers had raised her in, and the bustling common lands of Beqanna in which she was as invisible as they trained her to be, with or without putting any effort in.

    Even after the change, she’d failed to find a place that clicked. Having long since realized she had forever to make a dent in the world, she’d been content to wander and watch. It hadn’t been until she found herself pregant with Sochi that Sloene had decided she’d best find a place to call home. She wanted her child to have a solid childhood like her dam, even if not a conventional one. But even then the little grulla mare had dawled and dragged her hooves until Sochi was born, and then when she met Scorch it had seemed almost a work of fate, aligning Sloene and her daughter with a place that was known for nurturing strong women.

    She has to work hard to hide her utter shock that Djinni is related to her foster-mother Nera, but it works to her advantage that it would be normal for her to be a little surprised, given what this reveals about their respective ages. Neither of the short mares, after all, look like they’re decades old. In the end, Sloene gives a little smile before she responds. “Indeed, keeping secrets was the least of the things I learned,” is her agreement. She suspects Djinni of being a possible spymaster, and she had told Hestia she’d share full knowledge of her gifts with said person, but it’s still just a suspicion.

    The pink mare admits to being a mother herself, and Sloene smiles wistfully even as her heart lurches every time someone moves below, wondering if that might be the moment Sochi departs. “I am glad she is coming into her own,” she says firmly, “As that was half the reason we followed Scorch to Nerine’s shores instead of giving one of the other recruiters a chance.” The other half a reason, the one she holds close to her heart, was the opportunity for Sloene herself to make a mark, to put her talents to use. “But I will miss her anyway.” She’s sure Djinni didn’t need her to say that out loud, but it leads into the rest; “I’m hoping I can fill some of that free time in service to Nerine.”

    SLOENE
    I've got a lump in my throat
    cause you're gonna sing the words wrong
    #5
    The surprise on Sloene's face is pleasant.

    Djinni does love a good surprise.

    Still, she enjoys the grulla mare's quick recovery equally as much; regardless of how she had mastered that, Djinni appreciates it. The rose gold mare follows the other's gaze back to the beach one final time, her ears flicking as she listens. For all that Scorch is Hestia's closest advisor - and apparently a prolific recruiter - Djinni has yet to truly form an opinion on the hairless mare. She has her suspicions, of course, given the roan's heritage, but has not yet found a need for anything more solid than suspicions.

    Sloene mentions serving Nerine, and while Djinni still finds the idea rather whimsical, she had given Hestia her word, and she almost always keeps it.

    "Do you intend to join the army or the diplomats?" She asks, meeting Sloene's gaze squarely with her sea-green eyes. "Or would you prefer to remain unencumbered to better serve my caste?"


    ooc: i am sorry for this garbage post but i wanted to get you something up D:
    D J I N N I
    genie | rose gold tobiano dun | trickster
    #6
    lady, runnin' away to the riptide
    taken away to the dark side

    She doesn’t have to give much consideration to Djinni’s next question; it isn’t a loaded thing, or a veiled request for some other information. “I’m no warrior,” she says honestly, and who can blame her? She is agile, but not fast; she is small, with no other physical traits to give her an edge; there is nothing about Sloene that says “I’m Dangerous”, and she doesn’t have to prove herself that way, and she doesn’t like to get hurt. Oh, she can tolerate it; who trains a spy without training them for the worst-case scenario? But she doesn’t get some sort of high off of it as warriors seem to do. “I can defend myself, a little, and I’m quite good at escaping. But I’m no use to defend others.”

    One of the reasons she had been mostly content to wander alone, but had sought a home when she first had a child. “I could turn my hand to diplomacy, if needed,” she goes on, but reservation in her sweet voice makes it clear that’s not really what she would prefer. “But bad diplomats are of no use to the sisterhood, and good diplomats get noticed, which would mostly defeat any other purpose I might serve.” A pause again, a heartbeat of consideration before Sloene decides to entrust Djinni with one of her secrets. After all, what good does it do for anyone to know she can change forms? It is not an illusion, to be broken, and the transformation is quite foolproof. Even if the spymaster tells someone of what the little mare can do, how would they ever know once it has happened? “I can be...unnoticed. When I die, I come back almost immediately in a new body as an adult. But I’d rather not be dying all the time to stay anonymous, unless there is no other choice.”

    A quirk of a grin there, because surely Djinni will understand - death is not a pleasant thing, no matter if it’s not permanent, and it’s not exactly to be sought after.

    SLOENE
    I've got a lump in my throat
    cause you're gonna sing the words wrong




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