05-15-2015, 08:31 AM
She leads Storm Dancer back in relative quiet, figuring the mare doesn’t have any need for small talk throughout. Straia does speak up now and again, putting out the kingdoms they pass (just the Falls, really, though she offers up the general direction of the other surrounding kingdoms as well). The bay and white queen sticks to information that the mare might find useful one of these days, should she ever want to be a diplomat. Or simply if she wants to know their enemies, though they have none yet.
That would change though, once her diplomats came back from their kingdom visits with more information for the Chamber to decide with. They had the untrustworthy Valley as an ally, but they were a powerful friend at least. She still leaned toward keeping the Falls at least as a treaty, because she still thought having access to the healing waters was useful. The other members of her kingdom were not all in agreement yet, so they would have to see which way the wind blew there. Otherwise, she truthfully had no plans. She’d let her kingdom decide with her, even if the ultimate decision was hers.
She didn’t go over all these details with the other mare though. That all seemed rather dull to someone who had never even seen the kingdom before. Straia would, of course, if Storm Dancer expressed any interest down the road in such matters, but for now the lay of the land seemed like enough.
It is, thankfully, not a particularly long way, only part of a day. They arrive at the Chamber easily enough. The border is marked clearly, pine trees ringing the kingdom like sentries. Straia nods her head slightly at the trees with a small smile. There’s still evidence of the disasters a few years ago, a few burn marks and scorched trees. But the kingdom had been growing back in leaps and bounds, looking more like it’s old self every day. Shadowed and secretive and beautiful. Not in the traditional sense of the word, but in a dark and misty way.
Straia leads her through the pine forests to the center of the kingdom, weaving her way through the trees with the practice of someone who has lived here all her life. And she has. She’s grown up in these trees, and they will always be home. She pauses near a charred mass of hardened lava, once the companion to the magical tree in the Gates. They could knock it down, but she rather likes the reminder of the past she is working hard to destroy, the past she wants to rebuild this kingdom from. They were no longer allied with the Gates. They wouldn’t be the laughing stock of Beqanna any longer.
Beneath the ground, not too far away, there’s the unmistakable beating of a heart. Her panther man, her son’s grandfather, and perhaps one of the fathers of this kingdom. His heart keeps it alive. “What do you think?”
That would change though, once her diplomats came back from their kingdom visits with more information for the Chamber to decide with. They had the untrustworthy Valley as an ally, but they were a powerful friend at least. She still leaned toward keeping the Falls at least as a treaty, because she still thought having access to the healing waters was useful. The other members of her kingdom were not all in agreement yet, so they would have to see which way the wind blew there. Otherwise, she truthfully had no plans. She’d let her kingdom decide with her, even if the ultimate decision was hers.
She didn’t go over all these details with the other mare though. That all seemed rather dull to someone who had never even seen the kingdom before. Straia would, of course, if Storm Dancer expressed any interest down the road in such matters, but for now the lay of the land seemed like enough.
It is, thankfully, not a particularly long way, only part of a day. They arrive at the Chamber easily enough. The border is marked clearly, pine trees ringing the kingdom like sentries. Straia nods her head slightly at the trees with a small smile. There’s still evidence of the disasters a few years ago, a few burn marks and scorched trees. But the kingdom had been growing back in leaps and bounds, looking more like it’s old self every day. Shadowed and secretive and beautiful. Not in the traditional sense of the word, but in a dark and misty way.
Straia leads her through the pine forests to the center of the kingdom, weaving her way through the trees with the practice of someone who has lived here all her life. And she has. She’s grown up in these trees, and they will always be home. She pauses near a charred mass of hardened lava, once the companion to the magical tree in the Gates. They could knock it down, but she rather likes the reminder of the past she is working hard to destroy, the past she wants to rebuild this kingdom from. They were no longer allied with the Gates. They wouldn’t be the laughing stock of Beqanna any longer.
Beneath the ground, not too far away, there’s the unmistakable beating of a heart. Her panther man, her son’s grandfather, and perhaps one of the fathers of this kingdom. His heart keeps it alive. “What do you think?”
straia
queen of the chamber