everything we are, it just went away
with a slide of the tongue and a sour taste
Their conversation, though not yet a long one, seems already to be running in circles. The youth – Clayton and herself – want to keep the Sanctuary safe… isn’t that, in the long run, what is the most important? To her it is; it seems that way to Clayton as well. And perhaps she has a fear of the plague, but there is nothing wrong with that. The plague nearly killed her very best friend in the entire world... she has a lot to fear from it. And that is okay.
She remains silent for a time, though there are words – and emotions – brewing just beneath the surface. She glances down to find that her hooves have turned to paws, and sharp black talons dig anxiously into the ground as they debate back and forth on what would be best for the Sanctuary. Ilma is as hard as stone, convinced to move their home seat back to Hyaline and Amet, who must be this golden-scaled stallion who appeared before them. Amet, someone she had never met until this day, and her dear friend Kensa, who had been entrusted to be caretaker of Hyaline when her and Litotes were barely out of their teenage stages. If Kagerus and Solace trusted them to lead, why shouldn’t they trust Clayton and herself?
“So give us a year,” she says suddenly, brown eyes full of emotion. She, too, has poured her entire heart and soul into the Sanctuary in the three or so short years that she has been here, and she adores the Cove moreso than she had ever hoped to love Hyaline. “Before the plague, there were no distinctions of the East and so on. There was just the kingdoms that have branched into regions, with their subkingdoms and territories. Kagerus and Solace chose the Cove to be the seat of the East. Not to hide, as you say, but to grow strong and safe together. As a family. As the Sanctuary has always been; a family.”
She swallows past her nerves and looks to those that have gathered – they are not many, but they are her family just as much as Cress and Oxytocin and her aunts and uncles gathered in Loess, and she loves them all truly.
She wants them to give her a chance, at least.
“Let the seat of power remain here, for now. Train us so that we can know what to expect and how to grow as leaders. If, in a year, we are still not ready then, the seat of power can transfer peacefully back to Hyaline, and we can stay on as the leaders of the Cove. If the plague shows no sign of letting up, we will remain as a sanctuary to all that wish to heal or find refuge from it, but that will be all. We” – and she hopes that Clayton doesn’t mind her speaking for him – “will be completely loyal to Hyaline in that instance.”
She doesn’t know if Ilma and Amet will agree, but she wants to try, at the very least. “I love my family that I’ve built here; Solace and Kagerus have mentored me to be a half-way decent diplomat and a better person that I could have dared to dream. I am totally loyal to the Sanctuary as well, and willing to put in the hard work that it will take to protect us from any future threats. Just give us a year, that’s all I ask.”
Dawn
oh, it's gonna be a long night
basically, dawn loves everyone very much
she wants ilma to give them a chance, to mentor them and see if they have potential as rulers
if, after a year, they suck, hyaline and amet/kensa can take back over as the seat of the east