again you’re gone, off on a different path than mine
i'm left behind wondering if i should follow
The last storm of winter was determined to make an impression. Lepis, sheltered by granite walls, waited long hours after her meeting with Neverwhere for it to wear itself down, and finally emerges into a damp and dripping dusk. There is enough light for her to make it on foot to Taiga by nightfall, she reasons; her wings are too wet to carry her in flight. The dun mare does her best to shake what water she can from the blue and gold feathers, and finally tucks them tightly against her sides as she begins to make her way south.
This is a journey she has made only a few times before, and she is grateful the path is not hard to follow. The trees begin to grow thicker around her, dark and dripping sentinels in the twilight. The rain has dampened her sense of smell as well as her feathers, and the patter of water dulls her hearing. There is someone ahead, someone coming from the south, but Lepis does not have time to waste. She needs to make it to Taiga, and to tell Pteron of the curse that cannot be broken, and of his grandmother’s disappearance. She is so focused on this that she does not truly see Lilliana until they are nearly upon each other, rounding a bend in the trail around a protruding granite boulder that puts them suddenly face to face.
There are a hundred – no a thousand – things that Lepis has considered saying in this moment. Some had been sharp, like the barbed mention of secrets during the run-in with spotted Breckin. Others had been morose, long-winded explanations of her emotions. But what she eventually says is simply:
“I’m surprised to see you in Nerine.”
And indeed there is surprise on her navy face, but it rests there like an insubstantial mask, one that she does not mind if Lilliana notices. When it fades – which it does in no time at all – what is left is as cool as the gust of almost-spring wind that harried away the storm. Not cold, not sharp, not cruel. Indifference, if it must be compressed into a single word; she looks (and feels) indifferent when she finishes the rest of her statement.
“I’d not heard Neverwhere was married, but she must be if you’ve come all the way from Taiga.”
LEPIS
i’m the one who sees you home--
but now i’m lost in the woods
and i don’t know what path you are on |
