With her wings flared, the autumn wind chills her once-warm sides, and the dun mare shivers as he answers.
He’d been slipping away even before he’d vanished, and though Lepis had let the shock of their initial reunion disguise it in front of their son, she cannot do the same now that they are alone. She knows those eyes - she’s looked into them countless times – but she does not recognize what is behind them. At first, she’d told herself that it was just his way of coping with Gale’s loss. She had clung tighter, unwilling to lose more than she had to, brushing away his uncharacteristic behavior and absences as symptoms of grief. But then the changes had become visible even to the naked eye, and Lepis came to realize that it was something more. Exactly what, she had not asked, but he still came each night to their nest and surely if he thought it worth telling he’d have told her.
But then he really had vanished, and when he had come back it had been with bitter words that she might have expected from an enemy, but never from him. She has always trusted him, first as a king, then a friend and lover, but as his body contorts itself in front of her, she feels a shadow of doubt. Doubt and distrust, with an edge of uncertainty, of fear. It is fortunate for Wolfbane (and perhaps for them both) that she is not more afraid. Lepis does not handle fear well.
What ever she’d been hoping for – an apology? a second chance at a happier reunion? – she is suddenly sure is not coming. His question confirms that – nothing about her, about them. He wants to know if she’d been to see his grandmother. Lepis scowls, as much for the memory of the meeting as for it being asked at all, and channels the energy into a leap forward.
“I did.” She answers as her wings catch the air, and then is silent as she gains altitude beside him. “She called me an arrogant infant, and told me that I could either give up Taiga or be destroyed.”Lepis had done neither, and yet Heartfire had still left the conversation considering herself the victor. Lepis considers it more a draw, but given that she had not gone to Nerine expecting much, she had also not left entirely disappointed.
Lowering her left wing, Lepis banks sharply to come up beside the avian creature with her husband’s coloration.
“Would you like to hear more about how the Taiga’s political ties have changed while you were away? The pegasus mare finally asks, and the uncharacteristic saccharine tone is more than indicative of the query that soon follows. “Or are you going to fucking apologize for what you said to me earlier?”
Her voice doesn't quake (or at least not any more than it might if she were only angry), and Lepis is proud of that. She is less proud of the inexplicable trepidation that she feels as she waits for an answer, waits to see if he'd meant what he'd said, if he'd meant to stab at the only scars that still pain her after all these years.
@[Wolfbane]
He’d been slipping away even before he’d vanished, and though Lepis had let the shock of their initial reunion disguise it in front of their son, she cannot do the same now that they are alone. She knows those eyes - she’s looked into them countless times – but she does not recognize what is behind them. At first, she’d told herself that it was just his way of coping with Gale’s loss. She had clung tighter, unwilling to lose more than she had to, brushing away his uncharacteristic behavior and absences as symptoms of grief. But then the changes had become visible even to the naked eye, and Lepis came to realize that it was something more. Exactly what, she had not asked, but he still came each night to their nest and surely if he thought it worth telling he’d have told her.
But then he really had vanished, and when he had come back it had been with bitter words that she might have expected from an enemy, but never from him. She has always trusted him, first as a king, then a friend and lover, but as his body contorts itself in front of her, she feels a shadow of doubt. Doubt and distrust, with an edge of uncertainty, of fear. It is fortunate for Wolfbane (and perhaps for them both) that she is not more afraid. Lepis does not handle fear well.
What ever she’d been hoping for – an apology? a second chance at a happier reunion? – she is suddenly sure is not coming. His question confirms that – nothing about her, about them. He wants to know if she’d been to see his grandmother. Lepis scowls, as much for the memory of the meeting as for it being asked at all, and channels the energy into a leap forward.
“I did.” She answers as her wings catch the air, and then is silent as she gains altitude beside him. “She called me an arrogant infant, and told me that I could either give up Taiga or be destroyed.”Lepis had done neither, and yet Heartfire had still left the conversation considering herself the victor. Lepis considers it more a draw, but given that she had not gone to Nerine expecting much, she had also not left entirely disappointed.
Lowering her left wing, Lepis banks sharply to come up beside the avian creature with her husband’s coloration.
“Would you like to hear more about how the Taiga’s political ties have changed while you were away? The pegasus mare finally asks, and the uncharacteristic saccharine tone is more than indicative of the query that soon follows. “Or are you going to fucking apologize for what you said to me earlier?”
Her voice doesn't quake (or at least not any more than it might if she were only angry), and Lepis is proud of that. She is less proud of the inexplicable trepidation that she feels as she waits for an answer, waits to see if he'd meant what he'd said, if he'd meant to stab at the only scars that still pain her after all these years.
@[Wolfbane]
