staring at the ceiling in the dark
same old empty feeling in your heart
The heraldic visit had not been forgotten, and the memory of the angelic mare’s words grow stronger as Lepis has watched them play out in front of her. Her efforts to halt them had been in vain, so the dun mare assumes Fate must wish them so, for surely only Fate is strong enough to contradict Lepis’ will. First Alcinder had been taken, then they had come for Lepis. Castile’s casual mention of being trapped in his dragon form preceeded the arrival of a glittering black Pangean creature that Lepis avoids (and ensures her son and Alcinder do as well, though such a thing is difficult when it roams free). Then, nearly a week ago, Oceane had disappeared, leaving behind only the scent of the same red-eyed stallion that she had kept from snatching Lepis.
Now Castile has flown away, a distant speck in the northern sky. The echoes of his roaring still ring through the hills and echo in her blue-tipped ears.
She’d scoffed when Ilma had told her to keep watch for his departure without saying a word, and yet she watches the foretelling come true in front of her.
Oceane missing, Castile gone feral, Wolfbane lurking in Loess, a hungry monster on the loose. The obstacles to her goals stack ever higher, and she laments once more allowing her stance toward Nerine to waver. If she’d just taken Taiga when she had the chance, none of this would have happened. But she had let herself be soft, let herself be swayed by the avoidance of violence. That’s clearly come to naught, she thinks as she passes the carcass of the Pangean monster’s first kill. It does not look especially equine, though she does not peer too close.
This is not a retreat, she tells herself. It is a repositioning. And with a few more tasks – finding her son and then Alcinder – the piebald mare heads south.
LEPIS
staring at the bottom of your glass--
hoping one day you’ll make a dream last
but dreams come slow and they go so fast |
