that's all there is
She is no trained warrior, alert to every movement around her, but neither is she oblivious to the movements of others; how could she be, when she and her father have been essentially homeless for so long? In truth, Rhonen had done most of the watching, but as she grew up, he’d begun to delegate some of these tasks to Noah, preparing her for life without him, though both had assumed that time would be long distant. Now though the sound of an approach brings her up, away from the explosion of growing flowers, and she focuses her still desolate gaze on Vulagris.
The roan’s body tenses, her eyes widening marginally, but she firms her stance, intending to stand strong no matter what. When he begins to speak, however, she relaxes fractionally; while she doesn’t necessarily agree with everything the stranger says, his voice is in no way threatening, and he offers a slight smile at the end. She gives him only a portion of her attention, though, because it’s hard to miss gold and blue pegasus descending from the sky and approaching quickly.
Two-on-one is slightly less comforting, and she takes a slight step away from the pair even as she lifts her chin and shores up her confidence, forcing her voice to stay quiet but firm and steady when she responds. “My name is Noah,” she says first, because it’s easy. She glances at the gray, reminding herself of his name (‘Vulgaris’) and then back to the brighter stallion (‘Wolfbane’). “I do understand. You’ve come here because this land is safe from the plague, while your Loess is not. But this won’t last forever, and in the end you will get to go home.”
Noah imagines Loess, like all Kingdoms, as some grand place. In contrast, this place is small but vibrant; a hill to Loess’ mountain. “I don’t have another home to go to, and I find myself very much already in love with this place for itself.” The girl fidgets, refolds her wings, smiling dreamily for a moment as she remembers the sun rising over the meadow. At her feet, several plants sprout new buds that quickly become bright flowers. She blinks away the memory and forces herself to focus – she’s still quite tired from fighting the symptoms of whatever illness has been affecting those who went on Carnage’s first quest. The symptoms are better – no more delusions, and she rarely coughs anymore – but her body is taking time to recover completely. It doesn’t respond to her own power, though she knows from a random experiment on her way from Pangea to here that that’s not the case for victims of this new disease.
“I also have no objection to sharing this safe place with those in need until everyone can go home. But when you do go home, I’d like to keep this place for myself, and for those who may have come to love it while we shelter here. As a herd, perhaps.” She doesn’t need or want to be a Queen, and she doesn’t feel like this place wants to be a Kingdom. “In return, I can offer some protection from the disease, for your people. I can heal it, in fact.” Here she hesitates, her confidence faltering. Her dark fall to the ground and then lift carefully to meet Wolfbane’s, tentative and dark. “I could…maybe I could help you with your war, as well. I might be able to make your enemies more sick. But that would be terrible, and I’d rather not unless something terrible would happen, otherwise.”
noah
@[vulgaris] @[Wolfbane]