"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
11-19-2019, 08:56 AM (This post was last modified: 11-19-2019, 01:22 PM by Lepis.)
the rain that falls upon your skin it's closer than my hands have been
Winter had been over-long, and was reluctant to release its grip on Taiga. Yet spring has come, with bright lines of new growth in the redwood canopy and the in bright faces of the crocuses and primrose blooming in the meadow. When it does, on the first morning that Lepis wakes and does not snuggle nearer to her nestmate for warmth, she knows that it is almost time. It is only Elio that is curled against her – Celina has taken to sleeping at her father’s side, Lepis can only assume. They had argued, bitterly, and Lepis has not been able to find her alone long enough to apologize for the way she had spoken. Each time she tries, Celina disappears into the trees, as adept at vanishing into the woods as her invisible siblings.
The dun mare extracts herself from the well-feathered nest, pressing a fond kiss to her son’ sleep-damp forehead. Each morning he is just a little bigger, a little older, a little closer to fledging. In truth, he might have left the nest already, but she is guilty of keeping him a little longer, of prolonging the inevitable separation of child from mother. She won’t keep him too long, she has promised herself, not so long that it might damage him, but she does circle back before leaving the nest one last time. She wraps him beneath her neck with a deep inhale, and presses her golden cheek against his striped neck one final time before leaving the nest. She had told someone once that her children are her world, and despite the shift in every other part of her world, that hasn’t changed.
It is almost time, time to give an answer to Castile.
Almost, but not quite.
Lepis rarely rushes to decisions, but this one has taken longer than any other. It has taken some time for her to admit to herself the reason for the delay – well, the reasons. For five years Loess has been entirely out of reach, yet now the dragon presents it to her on a platter. And yet, she knows that reaching for the crown requires releasing her grip on Taiga and everything that remains here. It is not the land itself – dark, foggy, trees prohibitive to flight – that holds her, and nor is it the relinquishing of power to someone else. Pteron would make a good ruler, she knows, at least once he has settled down and married. Yet even that, which she had once been so sure of, is laced with doubt. Will marriage really make him happy?
It’s certainly only brought her pain, at least in the ending.
Her breath hitches; she swallows a sob. Lepis is walking through the woods, and she will not do so with tears on her face, not when there is no telling who she might find around the next bend in the path. Instead, her blazed face smooths into the flawless mask she so often wears, and she shakes out the elbow-long tresses of her navy mane. She’d let Elio braid them into a single plait before bed last night (the concentration and patience it requires is good for him) and even as she shakes it loose, Lepis knows it still falls on the left side of her neck. The right side is bare, and as if summoned by the realization a spring breeze blows across it, brushing cool fingers across the myriad of scars.
lepis, comtesse of taiga queen of loess | queen of sylva | queen of the south lover of wolfbane | mother of pteron, marni, tiercal, eyas, gale, celina, and elio
Just as Lepis had once come to find her, so does Heartfire return the favor. She does not labor under the same shackles of self-imposed politeness however. And most certainly not when her own autonomy had been threatened by such arrogance. A fatal arrogance, did the self-styled comtesse not tread more carefully than she had done last time.
She has little care that the gold and blue mare is no doubt still reeling from they way her life had seemed to turn on it’s head of late. And even less sympathy. This is a bed Lepis had made for herself. And, well, one could hardly be upset they’d been stung when kicking a hornet’s nest, could they?
Had things gone differently, Heartfire may have had sympathy. Though she to this day refuses to acknowledge it, she has had her heart broken by the careless, foolish whims of men. And it is not an easy ache. But as it is, whatever kindness Heartfire might have once been able to muster had crumbled to dust the moment Lepis had laid the sticky fingers of her deceptive power on her and sought to bend her to her will.
Subtle it may have been, but no less vile for it.
Still, she hides her anger well. She has never been one to react thoughtlessly or heedlessly. And though Heartfire may no longer hold any mercy in her breast for the woman, she would give her one final opportunity to save herself. She’s not cruel, after all.
She slips into Taiga in the early hours of the morning. The sun has barely touched the horizon and chill mist hangs heavily in the air, weaving through the towering trunks. For a woman of her abilities, it is not difficult to locate the woman she seeks, even the denseness of the fog that hangs so perpetually over the redwood forest. Her footsteps are muffled on a carpet of needles, her mottled blue and white frame blending eerily well with the dim grey of the fog.
When she finally nears Lepis, her blue eyes bright and hard as they settle on the woman, she greets her simply, her voice chill and clear, an unmistakably biting edge to it. “Lepis. I believe you have over extended your welcome.”
the rain that falls upon your skin it's closer than my hands have been
The admission of Lepis’ champagne champion had not come as a surprise. The dun mare’s flaws do not include underestimating her enemies, and despite Heartfire’s insistence otherwise, Lepis is certainly wise enough to recognize a worthy opponent in the roan mare. She’s begun to think of the northern queen as a spider, and the impression only grows stronger as the blue mare slips out of the fog ahead of her like some predator of the woods. Her web is spread all across Beqanna, and Heartfire twitches and tugs it easily, guided by the sight of far too many eyes. Someday, the roan mare will catch a meal too big for her to swallow, but Lepis is no longer certain that she fits such a description.
It is foolish to feel exposed by something as silly as an uneven parting of her mane, but Lepis has begun to realize that she is guilty of foolishness far more often than she had once thought.
She is guilty of a great many other things as well, but she tucks them all behind a calm golden face and quiet blue-grey eyes.
“Was Castile not appropriately cowed by the visit you and your bullies boys paid, then?” She asks, finding a small pleasure in keeping anything but curiosity from her voice. She doesn’t need to add anything more though, not with the words she’s chosen. Lepis knows at what she prods, and finds that doing so feels like courting danger. But danger is better than sadness – anything is, really – and she lets it flicker in her chest, feeds it.
Lepis casts her gaze north for a moment, and the thrill of danger slides up her throat, crisps the edges of her tongue.
“But…I understand. I will take my leave from the North.” Now she looks back, and indeed, her expression looks almost like acceptance. That is the decision she has been weighing, after all, the one that she suspects a bright white mare had come to influence, the one whom Lepis had humored as if she had not smelled of granite and the sea as strongly as Heartfire does. “And I will be taking Taiga with me.”
“We will go peacefully,” she adds, the words not half as quick as her heartbeat. It is a struggle to stifle the words that so want to follow, the addendum that the peace will exist unless her hand is forced.
“Because that’s what we both want, isn’t it? Peace?” It’s what Lepis wants, what she has been perfectly clear about since the very moment they cornered Aten on a dark night. Her methods are…unusual, but they’ve been rather successful as well. Something that she is sure Heartfire knows as well, else she’d not have finally come south. Is she threatened by their growth, Lepis wonders? Has she finally heard the growing number of voices from the redwoods echoing on her lonely cliffs and realized that Lepis had been truthful? Unlikely, Lepis thinks, but she waits, poised despite her relaxed posture.
Heartfire had promised to destroy her during their last encounter, and Lepis knows that she walks a very thin line.
@[Heartfire]
lepis, comtesse of taiga queen of loess | queen of sylva | queen of the south lover of wolfbane | mother of pteron, marni, tiercal, eyas, gale, celina, and elio
