08-06-2019, 11:51 PM
Lepis prides herself on her preparation for any situation. How much of that is innate self-confidence and how much is summoned and projected is something she has never considered. She is not especially interested in useless introspection, after all. She’d come into this unexpected gathering anticipating something far different than the chill greeting that follows. A shiver that is not entirely from a mountain gust ripples down one hind leg, and Lepis grinds that hoof into the pine needles. It could have been a stretching of her tendon.
Prepared, she reminds herself. She knows what she is doing.
The roan mare’s eyes are not unsettling for their eerie shade, but rather for their stark resemblance to another cerulean pair. Lepis had almost let herself forget. Yet there they are: Gale’s eyes looking out at her with a veil of politeness that her son had not lived long enough to master. Lepis blinks, and while Wolfbane might feel the infinitesimal tightening off her muscles, there is no sign of a reaction. She simply remains smiling, the expression far warmer and seemingly genuine than Heartfire’s cool mask.
Lepis had taken responsibility for her daughter’s behavior, but as Heartfire likely knows, she had not offered an apology. She’d phrased her words so that one might be implied (she is her mother’s well-trained daughter, after all) but she had fallen short of requesting forgiveness. Apologizing is too much like willingly taking on a debt – it is a shackle Lepis has no interest in.
Heartfire speaks, and the meaning behind her heavy pause does not go unnoticed. Lepis quirks her cobwebbed brow in curiosity, but does not respond. They’d been discussing, Heartfire says...and then says no more. Is she waiting for Lepis to not-quite apologize for that as well? Or to offer an explanation, Lepis wonders? Perhaps she waits for something else entirely.
Whatever it is Heartfire waits for, Lepis joins her.
She is the self-styled Comtesse of Taiga, after all, not some nursling foal that has been caught staying out after dark. If the all-seeing Heartfire wants to insinuate that her wandering eyes have found Lepis – and found her wanting – she’ll need to say it herself. Lepis has no interest in dragging it out of the roan mare. She is already well aware that Aten is not fond of the takeover. But nearly a year has passed and no ill has befallen Taiga. They have been dragged into no wars, and their population has grown higher without being crowded.
Her leadership has been uneventful and though off to a slow start, she is quite pleased with herself.
She usually is, after all.
Prepared, she reminds herself. She knows what she is doing.
The roan mare’s eyes are not unsettling for their eerie shade, but rather for their stark resemblance to another cerulean pair. Lepis had almost let herself forget. Yet there they are: Gale’s eyes looking out at her with a veil of politeness that her son had not lived long enough to master. Lepis blinks, and while Wolfbane might feel the infinitesimal tightening off her muscles, there is no sign of a reaction. She simply remains smiling, the expression far warmer and seemingly genuine than Heartfire’s cool mask.
Lepis had taken responsibility for her daughter’s behavior, but as Heartfire likely knows, she had not offered an apology. She’d phrased her words so that one might be implied (she is her mother’s well-trained daughter, after all) but she had fallen short of requesting forgiveness. Apologizing is too much like willingly taking on a debt – it is a shackle Lepis has no interest in.
Heartfire speaks, and the meaning behind her heavy pause does not go unnoticed. Lepis quirks her cobwebbed brow in curiosity, but does not respond. They’d been discussing, Heartfire says...and then says no more. Is she waiting for Lepis to not-quite apologize for that as well? Or to offer an explanation, Lepis wonders? Perhaps she waits for something else entirely.
Whatever it is Heartfire waits for, Lepis joins her.
She is the self-styled Comtesse of Taiga, after all, not some nursling foal that has been caught staying out after dark. If the all-seeing Heartfire wants to insinuate that her wandering eyes have found Lepis – and found her wanting – she’ll need to say it herself. Lepis has no interest in dragging it out of the roan mare. She is already well aware that Aten is not fond of the takeover. But nearly a year has passed and no ill has befallen Taiga. They have been dragged into no wars, and their population has grown higher without being crowded.
Her leadership has been uneventful and though off to a slow start, she is quite pleased with herself.
She usually is, after all.
