01-30-2016, 03:24 PM
 She lets the girl go off on her own far more often now. Not because she is less worried – she is made to worry, about the children she has at her side, and the children that have long left it – but because she knows she must. And, because she has seen Longear slowly find concert with that second soul of hers, everyday the bindings between them being pulled, and pulled tighter, becoming one and the same. She can better fit into the skin of that other. She can fly in it, be small, and has learned to be smart there. She is comfortable low to the ground, now. Sometimes, Vineine cannot help but fear, the girl prefers the cottontail over the filly. But nobody can understand the tug of war inside her daughter more than Longear – a battle, between the one that lives, and the one that is determined to live on. So she lets it be. Nature is full of conflicts, quiet and large. She lets the girl go, staying back watching her white tail flick and bob out of sight. Then she heeds the call, turning her back and picking through the ferns and bright bromeliads, into the hoof-flattened and hollowed out gathering place where the steel queen and a black stranger stands. She looks around, bright eyes lingering on the lounging big cat. She smiles and nods and finds the spirit inspires no fear in her. “Lagertha,” she stops beside Kataclysm, turning to her and envying the bulge of her sides (she had abstained from engaging this season – never an easy decision for her, but her hands are full), examining the glow on her forehead, “we have not met! I am Vineine.” She hopes her nerves to do betray her. She is ready. Has been ready, but the pulls and pushes of her own wanderlust are just as part of her as her roots here. She glances back to the cat, its round, relaxed eyes and big paws. After all these years, she still wonders how much permanence she is capable of. Everything has always been so fleeting. ****‘...Herself in the Heavens, her beam on the waves.’ - mother and amazonian - |