so sweet with a mean streak; chryseis

[Warlight]

Warlight

Kota's healing magic is still fresh and tingling across her skin as she apperates in Tephra's grassland. Will hadn't wanted to waste a moment of her lent strength in Silver Cove, not when she knew she would need most of her energy for the journey at the speed of light to the far side of Beqanna. 

With a shake of her head, she opens her eyes as she steps out of her dream, noting with a slight grimace how close she was to lava stream.

Dawn's light had been warming the eastern sky when she left her mothers' kingdom, but Tephra seems to still have an hour or so of darkness left. Tephra was never truly dark though, not compared to a winter night in the mountains, and she picks her way across the lush meadow with ease, even if the paths and dips of the land are unfamiliar to her. 

Her loose walk halts as she reaches the flow of lava carving it's way across the grassland, the fluorescent glow painting the mahogany of her pelt brilliant as flame. The heat stings the delicate skin around her muzzle and eyes, but she doesn't pull away.

The antlered mare watches the lazy current of molten earth, her thoughts turning over her still less than concrete reasons for her visit. Rhae and Raul were both on this side of the world, and for some reason it felt like she should be too. 

— soul as sweet as blood red jam —

[Chryseis]

you were a vision in the morning
when the light came through,
i know i've only felt religion
when i've lied with you
and i'm still waking every morning
but it's not with you

.

She has not seen anyone from Hyaline, with the exception of Rhaegor, of course, ever since she had left. The party had not gone how she had imagined in her mind, but what had once been such a fresh and bright wound – the hurt lingering in her memory like it was burnt there – now seemed so incredibly far away. The Island Resort party and what had transpired there had completely overshadowed any lingering ill feelings she had been harboring, and it seemed almost silly, now, to have been so upset over something such as Rhaegor being overwhelmed and leaving. He was hers, now, in every sense of the word, just as she was his.

Tephra was beginning to grow on her, even though it was not at all like her mountain birthplace. There was something enchanting, in the way the volcano glowed against the darkness of the sky, the stars having slowly begun to disappear with the promise of morning. She is not sure what stirred her awake, as she had laid warm and curled against Rhaegor’s side, but once her eyes fluttered open, she realized it was one of those mornings that she wouldn’t be falling back asleep. With her lips pressing briefly to his cheek, she stole away quietly, hoping to walk off the unsettled thoughts that still filled her mind. She hated to admit it, but she missed her father, and she missed Breckin and her younger sisters. Rhaegor was more than enough to fill the hole, but just as she could never replace his blood family, he couldn’t replace hers, either.

She hadn’t realized that she was following one of the lava flows, the heat of it singing against her blue roan skin. She was watching the way the molten material churned and drifted, when her eyes lift to land on a familiar face. ”Warlight?” Her name comes to her tongue quickly, even though they had only officially met once – at the same party that she had been wondering over earlier. The smile that alights across her face is bright as she closes the space between them, and she asks inquisitively, ”What brings you to Tephra, especially so early?” There is a flicker of concern, then, a frown creasing her gold-blazed face, when it occurs to her that perhaps she was here for Rhaegor because something had happened within their family. ”I can get Rhaegor, if you need me to.”

chryseis