04-16-2020, 08:27 AM
i feel
a bad moon rising
a bad moon rising
The sky over Loess has been empty of leathery wings the last few days, and the smell of ash and smoke grows stale in the red kingdom.
The change is subtle – most of the residents will remain oblivious – but to Lepis it is as noticeable as if the hot springs had frozen overnight. This is not the first time that the place has been without Castile, but the pied dragon has become a fixture of the place in the dun’s recent memory. Even these last few months, more monster than man, at least he had been visible in the sky as a distant black speck, ever-circling.
Castile is not the only thing missing from Loess. The list of the missing is far too long, and though Lepis has dedicated herself to filling some of the emptiness that their absence causes. A dozen trips to the common lands, a few recruits, and some diplomatic forays are not enough, of course, but keeping busy is better than waiting being reactionary.
She’s coming back from one such trip, her trailing mane and tail still tangled with a bit of long grass and flower-heads from the Pampas. She’s stopped to drink from one of the colder springs, and though the water tastes faintly of sulphur it is still refreshing on this late summer’s day. She looks up, and a dark shape in the sky causes her to pause. Her blue-grey eyes narrow until she identifies the pegasus, and then they widen in delight.
Lepis had meant every word she had said to Castile regarding his foolish plans, but that in no way diminishes the joy she feels in seeing Oceane returned. The two emotions are not at odds for Lepis; relief and disappointment are not an unfamiliar combination for the dun mare. She waits for Oceane to land, but it is not with excessive patience. Her hooves tamp rapidly on the hard earth, little clouds of dust rising as Oceane recovers from her rough landing.
“I’m so glad you are home,” she tells the purple mare through a mouth widened by a grin. Even as she nods at the other’s suggestion she is reaching out, brushing her nose gently against the other’s shoulder as though to reassure herself that Oceane is real. And she is doing that, truth be told, as well as breathing in the scent of Pangea, of Oceane’s captors, and the dragon-creature that had pulled her from their grasp. (Scent cannot be faked, she reminds herself, at least not by the man she is most suspicious of. This is Oceane, not just something that looks like her).
@[Oceane]
The change is subtle – most of the residents will remain oblivious – but to Lepis it is as noticeable as if the hot springs had frozen overnight. This is not the first time that the place has been without Castile, but the pied dragon has become a fixture of the place in the dun’s recent memory. Even these last few months, more monster than man, at least he had been visible in the sky as a distant black speck, ever-circling.
Castile is not the only thing missing from Loess. The list of the missing is far too long, and though Lepis has dedicated herself to filling some of the emptiness that their absence causes. A dozen trips to the common lands, a few recruits, and some diplomatic forays are not enough, of course, but keeping busy is better than waiting being reactionary.
She’s coming back from one such trip, her trailing mane and tail still tangled with a bit of long grass and flower-heads from the Pampas. She’s stopped to drink from one of the colder springs, and though the water tastes faintly of sulphur it is still refreshing on this late summer’s day. She looks up, and a dark shape in the sky causes her to pause. Her blue-grey eyes narrow until she identifies the pegasus, and then they widen in delight.
Lepis had meant every word she had said to Castile regarding his foolish plans, but that in no way diminishes the joy she feels in seeing Oceane returned. The two emotions are not at odds for Lepis; relief and disappointment are not an unfamiliar combination for the dun mare. She waits for Oceane to land, but it is not with excessive patience. Her hooves tamp rapidly on the hard earth, little clouds of dust rising as Oceane recovers from her rough landing.
“I’m so glad you are home,” she tells the purple mare through a mouth widened by a grin. Even as she nods at the other’s suggestion she is reaching out, brushing her nose gently against the other’s shoulder as though to reassure herself that Oceane is real. And she is doing that, truth be told, as well as breathing in the scent of Pangea, of Oceane’s captors, and the dragon-creature that had pulled her from their grasp. (Scent cannot be faked, she reminds herself, at least not by the man she is most suspicious of. This is Oceane, not just something that looks like her).
@[Oceane]
