Wolfbane’s nearly certain that her apology is one of a kind, in the literal sense. As in: this might’ve been the only time he’d ever heard her apologize about anything. Ever. So rare that hearing it, along with the not-so-brief “debriefing”, gave him a strong sense of déjà vu. The hazy memories about them leaving Loess together and Pteron behind… years have passed since then, Bane is, well would (really more like should) be eleven now. Eleven years in the face of what? He thought. An eternity?
Eleven years, six and a half spent together, and this is the best apology they can muster for one another.
But he accepted their reality for what it was; smiled and frowned anyway, hearing Lepis talk about the moving board pieces of their allies and enemies, then Celina and Elio. The scenery below was a numbing blur, swaths of evergreen rolling under and away from them while their disjointed shadows danced along too. The Comtesse soared above Bane’s parrot-curved head and keenly out of sight, and he could still hear the distinct shift in her tone when the answer about Heartfire came. The things he could pick up on these days, subtle things, sounded like noisy shouts - and those were common noises. The sound of a woman’s voice he knew as well as Lepis?
Exceptional hearing notwithstanding, the drake had heard his lover’s voice plenty of times and in plenty of ranges to understand where this conversation was headed. He could feel the enmity behind every word, yet didn’t alter his course or react when she spoke Aten’s name like a vulgar slur. Instantly, the treeline stopped and the ground fell out underneath them, taking Bane’s stomach with it and leaving a brittle, sad smile pinned in place of any other expression. They flew suddenly over boulders piled up near the shore, taking a lashing from the iron-blue sea.
All along the top of his feathers he could feel the gentle movement of Lepis ahead, the way the wind and even the spectrum of light warped like faint ripples when she twisted and pulled in front. Bane ducked his chin and dipped, curving back up with a wide, sweeping motion of his forewings to face her glare, his own expression a mirror of glassy disinterest while he hovered.
Lepis denied the foundational truth of their marriage - that either of them had made it anywhere without the other was the most delusional thing he’d ever heard, and the more she talked the further he withdrew into himself. The bluish dun mare’s rage grew paramount, filling the air like a crackling stormsurge. Her anger pushed out and his tempered within, slipping almost happily through the voided places where old Bane had gone away and left hollow, empty pockets to be filled. New Bane swept his strange wings, keeping himself aloft at first and stared, unflinching for as many seconds as he could manage, against the broad-handed slap of his wife’s brand of fear.
This kind - the kind of fear she shoved through those empty pockets inside of him like a serrated blade - reminded him of the way his father Longclaw would maul him during a wild flash of temper. He felt sick and horrified, recoiling away from the presence that had transformed into an utter nightmare. And Lepis seemed to know how he’d react, understanding the life she’d spent six and a half years with better than anyone else. She knew his soft points and she hit them hard, leaving the shape-shifter twisting and reeling away from her blows as if each fabricated emotion was a physical punch. His shoulders jerked and his stomach curled; the urge to resist her advances reared up to step in and save him, (so many years of their children’s emotions, knowing how these feelings were different from the true thing) he could’ve fought or at the very least tried.
But he didn’t. Wolfbane wanted to feel every little sensation burning white-hot inside of him, and he wanted to remind himself, tumbling head-first with his wings useless on either side and fresh tears of agony blurring his vision, that all of this was the Comtesse’s doing. That what he was feeling now: the hopelessness, the anguish, dark waves of terror - these were her ideas of compromise.
Lepis released him, taking away her projections as quickly and expertly as she’d given them, looking down onto her husband like a faraway star mid-implosion and Wolfbane turned belly-up so that they could see each other clearly in the moment. He kept falling, changing his skin and growing correct forelegs again during the plummeting descent, molding the feathers and talons back to a streaming tail and legs.
He changed himself into Gale, shrunken down and perfectly replicated from the last time they’d both seen him as a colt: gangly, spotted over with patches of blue and white just like the clouds, shimmering faintly when the light struck Bane’s coat just right.
As he slammed into the craggy rocks below, his body splintering apart inside when the audible smack of his weight against the sea stones echoed up for Lepis to hear, Wolfbane gasped at the feeling of horrible, unendurable pain from the impact. He relished the sensation anyways because it was real and so very, very true compared to the fabrication, and he looked up to where his dark star waited in the sky.
He would heal and change back later, but right now he wanted to remember the finite details of seaspray against his face and the numbness of his lower limbs before the bones and nerves knit themselves whole again. “Husband of yours?” He questioned himself and Lepis too, if she’d come close enough to hear, “No.” He decided for them both. Not anymore.
Gale shuddered and felt the final cracks and tears heal; his innards and outer shell had mended. Wolfbane gathered himself together, slow-moving as he rose and shifted skins simultaneously, turning into something black and oily that made no sense or took no immediate shape. His body wriggled and bubbled, and without any indication it shot with unnatural grace and liquid speed towards wherever Lepis waited. Hardly time to blink and he was there, upon her, with odd fingers and claws that grasped her at the throat and wrapped around the crest of her neck, while his haunches balanced themselves on her shoulder and his tail flicked like a cat’s between her wings.
The primate-type hand under her jaw grasped tightly and Bane shook the Comtesse’s head with a low, animalistic hiss, as if daring her to try and resist via emotional manipulation. One good jerk, the pressure of his nails on her skin promised. “You’re arrogant and prideful,” He named her sins, aware of them since the moment they’d first coupled, “and if you choose to fight a war you can’t win, you’ll lose more than my waning respect Lepis.” The creature spat her name exactly how she’d spat out Aten’s. A near-perfect mimic of her tone and anger.
“I’ll take our children first and then Taiga, by force if I have to. Somehow you and Castile share a similar delusion of grandeur: that this world is yours for the taking.” He gripped harder, “But this is our world Lepis, and Heartfire’s world, and Aten’s and so many more.”
My world, he didn’t say. He breathed gently against the poll of her crest and then let go, pushing away from her shoulder with his hind paws and sprouting wings for flight. “Your way of doing things failed.” Bane flapped, “You can refuse to admit it all you like, try and place the blame elsewhere." He frowned, "Give up the illusion Lepis; the North doesn’t love us and you can’t force them to.”
They should’ve never tried. Not when there were so many different routes they could’ve taken. Not when the final routes remaining could salvage what was broken, if only she’d stuff her vindictive desires away. “There’s still hope that they could… but not with you at the helm.”
@[Lepis] ok this was literally getting way too long so I just stopped writing and posted
Eleven years, six and a half spent together, and this is the best apology they can muster for one another.
But he accepted their reality for what it was; smiled and frowned anyway, hearing Lepis talk about the moving board pieces of their allies and enemies, then Celina and Elio. The scenery below was a numbing blur, swaths of evergreen rolling under and away from them while their disjointed shadows danced along too. The Comtesse soared above Bane’s parrot-curved head and keenly out of sight, and he could still hear the distinct shift in her tone when the answer about Heartfire came. The things he could pick up on these days, subtle things, sounded like noisy shouts - and those were common noises. The sound of a woman’s voice he knew as well as Lepis?
Exceptional hearing notwithstanding, the drake had heard his lover’s voice plenty of times and in plenty of ranges to understand where this conversation was headed. He could feel the enmity behind every word, yet didn’t alter his course or react when she spoke Aten’s name like a vulgar slur. Instantly, the treeline stopped and the ground fell out underneath them, taking Bane’s stomach with it and leaving a brittle, sad smile pinned in place of any other expression. They flew suddenly over boulders piled up near the shore, taking a lashing from the iron-blue sea.
All along the top of his feathers he could feel the gentle movement of Lepis ahead, the way the wind and even the spectrum of light warped like faint ripples when she twisted and pulled in front. Bane ducked his chin and dipped, curving back up with a wide, sweeping motion of his forewings to face her glare, his own expression a mirror of glassy disinterest while he hovered.
Lepis denied the foundational truth of their marriage - that either of them had made it anywhere without the other was the most delusional thing he’d ever heard, and the more she talked the further he withdrew into himself. The bluish dun mare’s rage grew paramount, filling the air like a crackling stormsurge. Her anger pushed out and his tempered within, slipping almost happily through the voided places where old Bane had gone away and left hollow, empty pockets to be filled. New Bane swept his strange wings, keeping himself aloft at first and stared, unflinching for as many seconds as he could manage, against the broad-handed slap of his wife’s brand of fear.
This kind - the kind of fear she shoved through those empty pockets inside of him like a serrated blade - reminded him of the way his father Longclaw would maul him during a wild flash of temper. He felt sick and horrified, recoiling away from the presence that had transformed into an utter nightmare. And Lepis seemed to know how he’d react, understanding the life she’d spent six and a half years with better than anyone else. She knew his soft points and she hit them hard, leaving the shape-shifter twisting and reeling away from her blows as if each fabricated emotion was a physical punch. His shoulders jerked and his stomach curled; the urge to resist her advances reared up to step in and save him, (so many years of their children’s emotions, knowing how these feelings were different from the true thing) he could’ve fought or at the very least tried.
But he didn’t. Wolfbane wanted to feel every little sensation burning white-hot inside of him, and he wanted to remind himself, tumbling head-first with his wings useless on either side and fresh tears of agony blurring his vision, that all of this was the Comtesse’s doing. That what he was feeling now: the hopelessness, the anguish, dark waves of terror - these were her ideas of compromise.
Lepis released him, taking away her projections as quickly and expertly as she’d given them, looking down onto her husband like a faraway star mid-implosion and Wolfbane turned belly-up so that they could see each other clearly in the moment. He kept falling, changing his skin and growing correct forelegs again during the plummeting descent, molding the feathers and talons back to a streaming tail and legs.
He changed himself into Gale, shrunken down and perfectly replicated from the last time they’d both seen him as a colt: gangly, spotted over with patches of blue and white just like the clouds, shimmering faintly when the light struck Bane’s coat just right.
As he slammed into the craggy rocks below, his body splintering apart inside when the audible smack of his weight against the sea stones echoed up for Lepis to hear, Wolfbane gasped at the feeling of horrible, unendurable pain from the impact. He relished the sensation anyways because it was real and so very, very true compared to the fabrication, and he looked up to where his dark star waited in the sky.
He would heal and change back later, but right now he wanted to remember the finite details of seaspray against his face and the numbness of his lower limbs before the bones and nerves knit themselves whole again. “Husband of yours?” He questioned himself and Lepis too, if she’d come close enough to hear, “No.” He decided for them both. Not anymore.
Gale shuddered and felt the final cracks and tears heal; his innards and outer shell had mended. Wolfbane gathered himself together, slow-moving as he rose and shifted skins simultaneously, turning into something black and oily that made no sense or took no immediate shape. His body wriggled and bubbled, and without any indication it shot with unnatural grace and liquid speed towards wherever Lepis waited. Hardly time to blink and he was there, upon her, with odd fingers and claws that grasped her at the throat and wrapped around the crest of her neck, while his haunches balanced themselves on her shoulder and his tail flicked like a cat’s between her wings.
The primate-type hand under her jaw grasped tightly and Bane shook the Comtesse’s head with a low, animalistic hiss, as if daring her to try and resist via emotional manipulation. One good jerk, the pressure of his nails on her skin promised. “You’re arrogant and prideful,” He named her sins, aware of them since the moment they’d first coupled, “and if you choose to fight a war you can’t win, you’ll lose more than my waning respect Lepis.” The creature spat her name exactly how she’d spat out Aten’s. A near-perfect mimic of her tone and anger.
“I’ll take our children first and then Taiga, by force if I have to. Somehow you and Castile share a similar delusion of grandeur: that this world is yours for the taking.” He gripped harder, “But this is our world Lepis, and Heartfire’s world, and Aten’s and so many more.”
My world, he didn’t say. He breathed gently against the poll of her crest and then let go, pushing away from her shoulder with his hind paws and sprouting wings for flight. “Your way of doing things failed.” Bane flapped, “You can refuse to admit it all you like, try and place the blame elsewhere." He frowned, "Give up the illusion Lepis; the North doesn’t love us and you can’t force them to.”
They should’ve never tried. Not when there were so many different routes they could’ve taken. Not when the final routes remaining could salvage what was broken, if only she’d stuff her vindictive desires away. “There’s still hope that they could… but not with you at the helm.”
@[Lepis] ok this was literally getting way too long so I just stopped writing and posted
![[Image: Wolfbane2.png]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/601918740845559818/696502662816071770/Wolfbane2.png)
![[Image: 3bCHvj.png]](https://img.nickpic.host/3bCHvj.png)