This is not the first time she has had a dream like this one, for all she quashes even the smallest bit while conscious. It fades as quickly as ever, leaving just a faint feeling of breathlessness. Lepis yawns it away, blinking in the late evening sunlight that streams into her nest. It’s almost always the light that wakes her this time of day, when she naps in the afternoon after being up most of the night. The bright directness of the light wakes her immediately, a sharp difference to her slow and well-shaded morning wake ups.

Lepis has made the nest around her exactly as she wants it, a cleft in a canyon wall, protected from the wind and littered with feathers. Most are gold, though there are a few blues, and in a little crevasse there is tucked a rainbow of single feathers: deep teal, inky black, navy blue, blue-green like the sea, firey red, and one downy soft white feather. There are a few shiny rocks too, mostly geodes. She’d lost her larger collection when she’d destroyed Fort Hideaway. These she has found herself, brought back herself and carried up here.

A gust of cool autumn wind from the canyon brings the scent of the creek at the base of it. This time of year it is only a creek, but come spring the water will reach higher, closer to her nest.

Lepis closes her eyes against the bright sunlight, and breathes deeply of the slowly cooling air. Her thick mane is a shield against the light, and when she finally shakes it away (having dozed off again for just a moment) it is warm against her previously shadowed shoulder. The sun now lights a few less inches of her roost, and when the tip of the tall red feather is entirely in shadow, Lepis takes flight. Her destination is the crescent shaped lake. Hot springs at either end feed the saltwater basin, and Lepis lands beside the southern one. This time of day, there is no company to be found, which suits Lepis just fine. Her stomach growls as she searches through the stiff green blades of the plants. 

She’s certain that Alcinder can’t have eaten all of the pineapples in this patch she’d showed him earlier today, but as her search grows longer she becomes less sure.

Her breath catches, but she is too flustered to realize that the surprise arrival of Castile behind her defies reason. There’s no reason why he should be waiting for her here – or here in Loess at all – but she is so accustomed to his presence that she pushes away the wriggle of suspicion without a second thought.

She knows that silhouette, even in the poor light of dusk. She knows that voice, those silver and orange eyes.

“At least you listen to”…one of us. Her voice trails off as he interrupts. Lepis places a great deal of trust in the opalescent mare. If she’d managed to get him to speak with Lepis, perhaps she’s also been able to make Castile see the error of his ways. Lepis hadn’t expected an apology; she values her pride highly and assumes the same of others. She won’t shame him like that. They’ll just pretend it never happened, he’ll stay in Loess, everything will go on as usual.

When he cuts her off, Lepis reconsiders all of it.

The smirk when he speaks of breaking promises. Hadn’t she just seen that expression? Her temper is not usually so quick to flare with her family, but she does not usually have to deal with an arrogant dragon convinced he’s in the right. She’d wondered if he was going to rub his successful steal in her face. She hopes not, and grits her teeth at the self-assurance in his voice. She will not lose her temper. She’s just hungry and irritable. The dun mare lets out a long, slow exhale, and meets Castile’s gaze.

“And what is that?”  Lepis asks. It is not worth the effort to mask her irritation, to replace it with something calmer and cooler-headed. Such projection is becoming less worth the effort in general, Lepis has been finding of late. Mostly in a more positive sense, of course: she does not have to emulate contentment or happiness, and she can sleep without manifesting exhaustion. This is certainly a less positive side effect of her loosening grip, but at least Castile is one of the few horses she is certain she might let her temper flare at without fearing being burnt too badly in return.

Watching him carefully, she does not miss the way his eyes go soft, just for a moment. There is very little she misses, not after nearly twenty years of practice, of observing faces. There are some that are hard to crack (she refuses to admit any are impossible), and Castile has never been easy. Something about the dragon, she’s always assumed, the magic in his veins drawing a veil across her intuition. Lepis cannot read minds, but she knows enough to brace herself for whatever it is he might have to say.

‘That you’re insufferable’ is not one that she has heard in some time. Lepis scowls immediately in response, the soft age lines around her eyes deepening in exasperation. Is this not exactly where they’d left off in their last argument? That he says nothing immediately after is all that still hers tongue, though she breathes sharply a time or two just to make sure he knows she’s not pleased. She’s holding her breath when he tells her that she is family, and she is slow to let it out in a sigh as he continues to speak.

Family binds her tongue as he speaks more, and eventually her breathing grows steady once more. He refuses to lose her. Lepis smiles, relieved, and reaches out to him. Her dark muzzle presses against his shoulder for a moment, an affectionate touch. There are some things that she has not spoken of. Castile knows though, somehow he always manages to know. She starts to draw away, and his defensive declaration – that he is not staying! – brings a dry laugh to her throat. She lets her guard down easily, eager to mend this rift in their relationship.

Once more she leans forward, pressing her muzzle against his cheek. "Can we talk about you staying?" She asks fondly while she pulls away. "I do not like when we fight." The dun mare admits, though there is a twist to her dark mouth that suggests she struggles to say it, and she glances pensively at him from beneath a lock of dark hair that has fallen across her face.

There’s no smoke rising from his nostrils, no smell of ash in the air like a fire just extinguished. Everything about him, from his horsehide to his hooves suggests that he is feeling peaceable, that he is doing his best to pacify Lepis. It is a pleasant feeling, warm and soothing, and she does so want to be reassured.

She does not flinch away when he leans toward her, but she does watch him curiously from her now-unshielded eyes. Castile hadn’t given her a warning, and that is almost strange, but not so much as the way he so easily capitulates. He is doubtful they can fix this? He isn’t sure that they should?

“There’s nothing to fix”, she says sharply, “I’ve made my decision, and it’s final.” Oceane understands why Lepis has done what she has. She need not explain this to Castile any more than she already has.  

Castile sighs, and closes his eyes, and repeats that he is not here to fix things. Lepis makes no secret of her displeasure, but it is nothing more then a huffed breath between her pursed lips. He has never been predictable, but she had hoped that he would return to some semblance of normalcy once the Fairy magic had worn off. Maybe it is better if some things aren’t fixed, she finds herself thinking. Perhaps she would be better off without the additional burden of an unpredictable dragon on her hands.

Some things about him are predictable though. Take, for example, the way he ambles away from their conversation, expecting Lepis to follow. (She does, but only because he is family and she is more forgiving than she should be; she certainly won’t do it a second time, lest he grow too comfortable)

“And what”, she begins from the edge of the salt lake, uninterested in another drenching so late at night. They do not all have the comfort of an internal fire on winter nights, she thinks as she watches the steam rise around Castile.

“Would you like to talk about? ” She asks, the sweetness of her tone is a clear indicator to those who know her of what will follow. “How about that you directly disobeyed my orders? Or maybe that you risked escalating things with Pangea, endangering everyone here? Maybe why you offered me a place beside you, but then chose Oceane over me?” She means the throne, of course, and so the emotion is heavy in her throat. It is anger that chokes her, and a sense of betrayal that she has stifled well.

To someone less knowledgeable about the private conversations between Lepis and Castile, however, it might sounds remarkably like romantic jealousy.

“Maybe it's actually better if we don't talk,” she finishes, finding that her heart is racing even from tossing these barbs. This is not a good time, not when she is hungry, not when she is irritable, not when she has a thousand better things to do than argue with a petulant child. “I do not think either of us will like where it ends.”

@[Wolfbane]

That he laughs at her correction brings another shake of her head, but he seems to be relaxing in the water, and Lepis suspects that is all she will get from him on the topic. The incredulity in his eyes is unexpected. He must know exactly what she’s talking about, and yet that is not at all how she thought Castile would react. Nor is the way he surges from the water, far too quickly. More than a decade has passed since Lepis had last been forced to physically defend herself. The man who had taught her how to is the one lunges toward her now, and if he had truly been Castile she would have seen the attack coming long before it did. Her Uncle is a great many things, but he is a dragon first and foremost. For him to come at her like this, like a horse, is so uncharacteristic a behavior that it is like a blindfold is suddenly ripped from her eyes.

“You!” She gasps just before it reaches her.

It is wearing Castile, much like it had worn Wolfbane, and Longclaw before him. But Castile is just a disguise it wears – the real man is likely far from Loess like had sworn to be – and though the face is false its hooves are not. Lepis has no inclination to tell the cursed creature that Castile favored attacking with his talons rather than hooves. Instead, she rises up on her own hindquarters, slamming the weight of her knees down on the shoulder he’s extended to kick at her.

She knows that the safest thing to do is to run.
She had known this long before she ever knew of Wolfbane and his curse. She’d learned it in the red forest, and it had been a hard-taught lesson. Running means there’s a better chance you’ll live to see another day.

But survival is no longer her priority, not like it had been then. At least, not just her own survival.

So rather than run, she shifts her weight back just enough to slam it down a second, her weight against its side and her head tight to protect her throat (just like Castile had taught her all those decades ago). Lepis is far from a brawny warrior, especially in this magical world, but she’s never had to be. There are easier ways to defend herself then by the might of hoof and tooth (or talon or tentacle)

Though her heart races, it is from adrenaline rather than fear. She has shoved the fear behind bravery and has no need to pretend otherwise. When they separate from their initial contact, Lepis steps back, her breaths coming heavy from the unanticipated exertion and the scrapes from hooves stinging. It wants revenge, she remembers, it wants to destroy and maim. It can’t be reasoned with, Bane had told her once, and any submission it might be appear to be beaten into would surely be a ploy.

“What do you want?” She asks not-Castile, moving so that she might always face it no matter how much she must move. A gust of warm air from over the salt lake ruffles her feathers, and she takes a deep breath of it, steeling herself. “Tell me, or I’ll make you regret it.” It’s there, just the softest touch of regret, a reminder that she is literal in her choice of words.

Wolfbane hadn’t seemed sure if the Curse was even capable of complex emotion, but Lepis has no intention of leaving any stone unturned in her efforts. Even if she can’t stop the curse, perhaps a mental assault might be enough to slow it down long enough to find a more permanent solution. First though, she means to find out why it is here, in Loess, after all these months. What has brought it here, when all her reports suggest that it has been lurking quietly in the north through the spring and summer?

@[Wolfbane]