10-22-2019, 02:49 PM
Lepis has called this place her home for nearly three years, and yet she knows that she has never truly felt settled here. Taiga has always felt like the last step before takeoff, a land from which to launch herself. All that time, she has been anticipating a glorious flight. Yet now she finds herself tumbling, down and down and down again, a failed takeoff tumbling toward disaster. She might have spiraled farther if Lethy hadn’t spoken up then, telling Lepis that Gale’s loss had been a terrible thing.
Gale’s loss? How had she let herself forget that? She has been so busy mourning her own loss that she had forgotten Gale. It is no wonder Bane means to take the rest of the children away; she can’t even bring herself to remember to mourn Gale. She forgets that she thinks of him often – and less frequently with pain, as the years have passed and looks down at the water.
She is not surprised to meet Lethy’s gaze in her reflection, and Lepis holds it as the buckskin mare talks. For a brief moment, she nearly frowns. The last war began because Tephra attacked Loess, and spilled the blood of children. Lepis had stood beside a terrified Tiercel, held unrelentingly by magical vines whose thorns pierced his skin. Yes, she thinks as she turns her almost-frown into a cough. Yes, that is what Tephra did. They’d pushed boundaries, and Loess had merely followed suit. The fire was a little less than Tephra deserves, but Lepis knows the importance of being gracious.
She hardly notices that this unexpected delve into politics pulls her mind from where it had been as she stared at the bottom of the shallow pond.
Pulls it at least until Lethy echoes Wolfbane’s words, and then the ache comes again.
Everyone seems to think she wants a war. That she can’t possibly achieve what she wants without bloodshed. It’s not an uncommon belief in Beqanna (after all, a physical contest over power is even now taking place in the Tephran jungle), and she’d cannot find it in herself to blame Lethy. She’d hoped the peaceful (in action at least, if not emotion) transition of power from Aten to herself and Wolfbane would be indicative of how they planned to continue their reign.
”I want to make Taiga the kingdom of the North. We are fast-growing and thriving, which I cannot say about the rest of the North.” The Icicle Isle was probably never meant for habitation, Lepis thinks, and Nerine is a ghost town with a blue-eyed queen. “I told Heartfire this, told her I had my uncle Castile’s support in doing so. I thought that guaranteeing peace between the North, The South, and the East would be an acceptable price to pay for giving up the crown of an empty kingdom, or that barring that she’d allow Taiga to pledge our allegiance to Loess instead, a much larger and more powerful land.” Lepis looks up at Lethy as she speaks the last, a beseeching look in her eye. Surely that seems like a good place, like a safe plan, her gaze seems to ask of the buckskin mare. “But she still holds the takeover from Aten against me. We did not ask her permission. She told me she’d destroy me if I did not give up leadership of Taiga.”
This is the story exactly as Lepis believes it, but as she falls quietly her mind starts to drift back, and asks the buckskin mare in a desperate attempt to change the subject, accepting Izora Lethia’s offer but reluctant still to tell of her freshest wounds “But tell me of your trip to the Island Resort. Was it beautiful? I hear it is much like Ischia in climate and Ischia is always perfect.”
@[Izora Lethia]
Gale’s loss? How had she let herself forget that? She has been so busy mourning her own loss that she had forgotten Gale. It is no wonder Bane means to take the rest of the children away; she can’t even bring herself to remember to mourn Gale. She forgets that she thinks of him often – and less frequently with pain, as the years have passed and looks down at the water.
She is not surprised to meet Lethy’s gaze in her reflection, and Lepis holds it as the buckskin mare talks. For a brief moment, she nearly frowns. The last war began because Tephra attacked Loess, and spilled the blood of children. Lepis had stood beside a terrified Tiercel, held unrelentingly by magical vines whose thorns pierced his skin. Yes, she thinks as she turns her almost-frown into a cough. Yes, that is what Tephra did. They’d pushed boundaries, and Loess had merely followed suit. The fire was a little less than Tephra deserves, but Lepis knows the importance of being gracious.
She hardly notices that this unexpected delve into politics pulls her mind from where it had been as she stared at the bottom of the shallow pond.
Pulls it at least until Lethy echoes Wolfbane’s words, and then the ache comes again.
Everyone seems to think she wants a war. That she can’t possibly achieve what she wants without bloodshed. It’s not an uncommon belief in Beqanna (after all, a physical contest over power is even now taking place in the Tephran jungle), and she’d cannot find it in herself to blame Lethy. She’d hoped the peaceful (in action at least, if not emotion) transition of power from Aten to herself and Wolfbane would be indicative of how they planned to continue their reign.
”I want to make Taiga the kingdom of the North. We are fast-growing and thriving, which I cannot say about the rest of the North.” The Icicle Isle was probably never meant for habitation, Lepis thinks, and Nerine is a ghost town with a blue-eyed queen. “I told Heartfire this, told her I had my uncle Castile’s support in doing so. I thought that guaranteeing peace between the North, The South, and the East would be an acceptable price to pay for giving up the crown of an empty kingdom, or that barring that she’d allow Taiga to pledge our allegiance to Loess instead, a much larger and more powerful land.” Lepis looks up at Lethy as she speaks the last, a beseeching look in her eye. Surely that seems like a good place, like a safe plan, her gaze seems to ask of the buckskin mare. “But she still holds the takeover from Aten against me. We did not ask her permission. She told me she’d destroy me if I did not give up leadership of Taiga.”
This is the story exactly as Lepis believes it, but as she falls quietly her mind starts to drift back, and asks the buckskin mare in a desperate attempt to change the subject, accepting Izora Lethia’s offer but reluctant still to tell of her freshest wounds “But tell me of your trip to the Island Resort. Was it beautiful? I hear it is much like Ischia in climate and Ischia is always perfect.”
@[Izora Lethia]
