03-29-2016, 03:44 PM
War.
She can still smell it on the air; can see how very close even the destruction of it came to touching places often thought neutral and untouchable like the field and the meadow, for there are scorched furrows in the ground of fires rampant and raging, and places where bits of blood and fur have settled in the aftermath.
Riva walks by these dastardly accoutrements and looks beyond them with all the earmarks of disdain. It is not that she does not favor war in the least but that she took no part in it, being too thin and spiteful to be of use on the battlefield when her tongue is a far better weapon she thinks, if wielded properly, than her body will ever be. Though the flesh has other merits, and it would not be beyond the bay tovero to plump her flesh just enough to entice and seduce alliances and whatnot from the loins of kings, being that she is a pirate’s get and something like whoring is not beneath her to get what she - er, the Jungle - wants. She is a suitable subject for her Queen, to do as she is told no matter the cost and perhaps this is what Riva has been waiting for all her life - to be the slave to another’s machinations as the seeds of her own sit inside her, hot and hateful.
The bay tovero follows the iron-gray mare towards the jungle, and as she does so, a strange feeling of permanence sinks heavily into her but instead of balking at the idea of it, she takes step after diligent step behind the Queen and embraces the permanence. It is new fuel for her, this sentiment of belonging to something greater than herself and her hate, and it takes up residence in her body, heavy and stoney and she likes the weight of it as Lagertha imparts a warning to her. “Alarmed, no,” she assures her. “Care, perhaps, since this is to be home I guess.” She cannot help the note of reluctance that curls around the word ‘home’ because that has always been lacking for her. She figures she must learn to embrace it though, as much as she must embrace the idea of sisterhood because that is what the jungle and its mares implies and she has agreed to it as much as she has agreed to anything in her life.
She can almost taste the Queen’s bitterness on the air and her own lip curls up in distaste; “They will pay in time for the destruction they have wrought on the land,” she says quietly, almost certain that it must be true because the jungle’s destruction cannot go unpunished but she is sure the iron-gray mare knows this already - she is Queen after all. Riva hesitates before the charred earth and blackened stumps of what she assumes were once mighty and tall trees. Her hate flares up at such careless destruction towards the land, what did it ever do to them except house the sisters and their secrets? Did that really warrant such brash and reckless destruction of trees that had been here long before the horses’ own time? Even then, Riva can feel the pull of the jungle in her blood as if it accepted her enough to welcome her to its burnt house and she turns her angry eyes towards Lagertha, “Which kingdoms would those be?” It is a quiet query, one that holds an underlying degree of threat because the enemies of the jungle would be her enemies and she leaps at the offer to cause mischief and mayhem to those that thought to harm this place.
Riva tracks the trails and makes note of the switchbacks until they reach the clearing; she is certain that if the jungle cast her out, it would keep her out no matter how much she paid attention to the lay of the trails that lead to its heart but it was still best to be informed enough to know how to get in and out of at least this part of the jungle. There is a tree and some mares but none of which acknowledge them in any way and she does not remark on that; “and if one wanted to be more than just a visitor?” Her question hangs just as emptily on the air as Lagertha’s statement, and Riva knows that she cannot be both - she must be one or the other, and she would not have spent the Queen’s time so carelessly if she was not truly interested in finding a place somewhere.
Funny how Riva wants so nonchalantly to belong somewhere all of a sudden…
She can still smell it on the air; can see how very close even the destruction of it came to touching places often thought neutral and untouchable like the field and the meadow, for there are scorched furrows in the ground of fires rampant and raging, and places where bits of blood and fur have settled in the aftermath.
Riva walks by these dastardly accoutrements and looks beyond them with all the earmarks of disdain. It is not that she does not favor war in the least but that she took no part in it, being too thin and spiteful to be of use on the battlefield when her tongue is a far better weapon she thinks, if wielded properly, than her body will ever be. Though the flesh has other merits, and it would not be beyond the bay tovero to plump her flesh just enough to entice and seduce alliances and whatnot from the loins of kings, being that she is a pirate’s get and something like whoring is not beneath her to get what she - er, the Jungle - wants. She is a suitable subject for her Queen, to do as she is told no matter the cost and perhaps this is what Riva has been waiting for all her life - to be the slave to another’s machinations as the seeds of her own sit inside her, hot and hateful.
The bay tovero follows the iron-gray mare towards the jungle, and as she does so, a strange feeling of permanence sinks heavily into her but instead of balking at the idea of it, she takes step after diligent step behind the Queen and embraces the permanence. It is new fuel for her, this sentiment of belonging to something greater than herself and her hate, and it takes up residence in her body, heavy and stoney and she likes the weight of it as Lagertha imparts a warning to her. “Alarmed, no,” she assures her. “Care, perhaps, since this is to be home I guess.” She cannot help the note of reluctance that curls around the word ‘home’ because that has always been lacking for her. She figures she must learn to embrace it though, as much as she must embrace the idea of sisterhood because that is what the jungle and its mares implies and she has agreed to it as much as she has agreed to anything in her life.
She can almost taste the Queen’s bitterness on the air and her own lip curls up in distaste; “They will pay in time for the destruction they have wrought on the land,” she says quietly, almost certain that it must be true because the jungle’s destruction cannot go unpunished but she is sure the iron-gray mare knows this already - she is Queen after all. Riva hesitates before the charred earth and blackened stumps of what she assumes were once mighty and tall trees. Her hate flares up at such careless destruction towards the land, what did it ever do to them except house the sisters and their secrets? Did that really warrant such brash and reckless destruction of trees that had been here long before the horses’ own time? Even then, Riva can feel the pull of the jungle in her blood as if it accepted her enough to welcome her to its burnt house and she turns her angry eyes towards Lagertha, “Which kingdoms would those be?” It is a quiet query, one that holds an underlying degree of threat because the enemies of the jungle would be her enemies and she leaps at the offer to cause mischief and mayhem to those that thought to harm this place.
Riva tracks the trails and makes note of the switchbacks until they reach the clearing; she is certain that if the jungle cast her out, it would keep her out no matter how much she paid attention to the lay of the trails that lead to its heart but it was still best to be informed enough to know how to get in and out of at least this part of the jungle. There is a tree and some mares but none of which acknowledge them in any way and she does not remark on that; “and if one wanted to be more than just a visitor?” Her question hangs just as emptily on the air as Lagertha’s statement, and Riva knows that she cannot be both - she must be one or the other, and she would not have spent the Queen’s time so carelessly if she was not truly interested in finding a place somewhere.
Funny how Riva wants so nonchalantly to belong somewhere all of a sudden…