and I discovered that my castles stand
upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand
Texas had glanced over at Malka when he asked about the powers of their new council, and he thinks that perhaps he sees something like confusion in her expression, and then perhaps relief on her face. He’d only asked out of genuine curiosity (if he’d actually cared about the fact that he’d been suddenly and thanklessly stripped of his advisor position and immediately replaced by a council of strangers he’d have voiced such concerns, but he has not). Tiberios though, seems to take offense to the question.
That is rather interesting in itself, not to mention the answer was not at all what Texas had expected to hear. He’s gone from “tireless defender of the Falls” to someone that should leave the kingdom with a single question. If Tiberios had ignored the question entirely (or even given slightly less of an indication that Texas was bothersome) the bay stallion might have left well enough alone and continued with what he has been doing for the past nine years he has served the Falls. There are sharp words (not angry, mostly barbed for his own amusement) at the tip of his tongue when Piety appears, and he is distracted enough by her arrival to temporarily forget how much he loves being bothersome.
The bay stallion has no idea what she means by the “sleeping” but since he’d fallen dead into the Falls and woken twenty years later he is beyond being curious about what the magic of the kingdom can do. “No,” he replies to her question about her mother, “but I’m sure she’s somewhere. ” They are both – Texas and Prague – always somewhere, but the difficulty in pinpointing their exact locations varies by year. Piety seems to be interested in staying if her joining of a caste is anything to judge by, but Tiberios’ command in response to her statement reminds the bay horse of his previous emotions.
He trusts Piety of course (as much as he trusts anyone beside himself), but she’s literally just come out of a cave and is being sent on a mission. She might be the queen of the Valley for all Tiberios knows, but she’s being sent off to represent the Falls to another kingdom.
“Why exactly did Shatter Me make you the King?” He asks, turning back to the sabino stallion with something akin to disbelief in his voice (if disbelief did not clash so poorly with how much he so does not care). He’d assumed that any King could do a better job leading than a Queen, but he finds himself rather missing the grey mare. She was sweet (and perhaps a bit too soft and kind) but Texas doubts she’d be so willing to let other kingdoms dictate the actions of the Falls so easily, and trust any new face to serve as their proxy.
He both genuinely wonders and wants to provoke the black stallion, if only for his own amusement. That much is obvious from the glint in his dark eyes; he wonders if the black horse will rise to the bait or prove himself to be a better ruler than Texas thinks him to be. For the Falls’ sake Texas should want the former, but so long as he lives unencumbered where and how he wants to, the Falls could become the Chamber Jr., and he’d watch mildly so long as Texas and those he loves tolerates, are left to continue their lives as they always have. Personally he wants the latter, for Tiberios to contradict his earlier praise of the bay stallion in front of the entire kingdom, but he’d settle for anything slightly entertaining.
texas
ooc: so Texas is obviously an asshole who thinks he needs to make all kingdom meetings more of a hassle for everyone involved :D