Private my eyelids are the door, my mind is the coffin; Colby

As the afternoon sun peaked in the sky, Alicent finally had to admit defeat.

Water dripped in glistening rivulets down her skin, the remnants of what had once been her frost scales. She could mostly tolerate that; she could even tolerate the vague irritability that came with being in the heat for too long (that was more so an issue for those around her). But once black began to spot her vision and the rapid rhythm of her heart caused her knees to feel weak, she knew it was time to retreat to the forest.

Reluctantly, she stepped out of where she had been standing knee-deep in the river; not even the cool current coursing around her was enough to abate the heat in the summer sun. Though she had not inherited her mother’s kelpie-like qualities, she still gave the impression of something that had emerged directly from the sea. Seashells lay tangled into the thick, cascading waves of her golden mane and tail, with the pastel colors of sea lavender twisting into the strands, and from her forehead spirals a horn made of seaglass. She may not be a kelpie, but she still looked a little out of place as she walked herself into the long shadows of the forest.

The coolness of the shade brought almost immediate relief, and the further she walked the more her frost scales began to reform, glinting in the dappled light above. The forest was beautiful in its own way, though it was not the beach, or even the river. She could appreciate the beauty of the golden strands of sunshine beaming through the leaves of the trees, the smell of slightly damp dirt, and chorus of birdsong happening above her head, but she still found herself wishing that she had headed towards the coastline instead.

Around a slight bend in the forest trail, she notices the golden stallion shrouded in shadow, alone. When she allows herself to take a full look at him—not at all coy in the way she does so, but instead stopping and holding him fast in her gaze, her head tilting almost appraisingly—she decides that he is handsome enough to garner her curiosity. “Hello,” she says, stopping what is hopefully a respectable distance. As someone that has been born into a land ripe with magic with none of her own—she is only a pretty thing, not so much a physically powerful one—she has learned to exercise at least some caution with strangers. It is only once she is close enough, though, that she notices the shifting of shadows clutching to him, and a pair of golden eyes. “Oh. You have a friend, I see. Hopefully I’m not interrupting.”

alicent.