lepis, comtesse of taiga
RUN AND TELL ALL OF THE ANGELS; THIS COULD TAKE ALL NIGHT
i think i need a devil to help me get things right Lepis had once been optimistic. She had thought there might be easy answers, hoped that others might take her at her word, that the world might be as simple as in the stories her mother told her. Beautiful queens, noble kings, and brave warriors were always victorious, she had been told; good always conquered evil. It was a rosy lie: that there were simple answers, and a rosy reign accompanied it for those first years of her life.
Yet a lie it was, one that finally assaulted a love-struck adolescent far from home, and ripped the happy ignorance away. Reality was beaten into her as surely as the will was beaten (and kicked and bitten and raped) out of her, and when she at last stumbled home – hazy eyed and newly wed to the man she thought her rescuer – she could see the world for what it is. The easy answer is that there are no easy answers, and strength is the winner: not goodness. Strength and power, those are what a victor has, and those are what she has pursued. Single-minded to the point of fixation, Lepis has honed what powers she has and the result of them now lie before her: a territory taken and a queen who refuses to bend.
None of that meshes with what she believes, and when she scoffs at Lilliana’s query it is not at the mare herself she directs the frustration, but rather the sentiment itself. Why does this part of life refuse to yield the way it should? Why will it not fit into the narrow box which everything else has? It cannot be because Lepis is wrong – she is never wrong.
(She is sometimes wrong, but there are two mouths she would tolerate hearing it from, and one would never say it and one is not here to do so.)
“You would think,” she huffs irritably, digging at the soft needles with an unsettled hoof, “You would think that allowing Taiga to secede, to form our own kingdom or even bind ourselves to Loess would satisfy her.” But it does not, her pawing hoof says, making a furrow of pine and bark and earth as she digs deeper. Her emotion is apparent and when she realizes this she pauses her miniature excavation. Her eyes almost narrow at Lilliana, curious what the copper mare might have done, but Lepis knows the blame is on herself, on allowing this topic to so incense her that she forgets to wield her usually iron-clad control.
Still, she does gather herself up, a visible thing that includes a shake of her head. The length of her navy mane settles to the far side, revealing the scars of her neck and withers, but she is perfectly composed once more. “Forgive me.” Lepis says, and though she asks forgiveness she makes no apology. “I’ve kept much of this to myself, of late.” A wry smile, one that hides the reason for her recent habits. “I am accustomed to a sounding board, and in his absence I’m afraid I’ve taken it out on you.” The pegasus doubts that Lilliana has noticed the Commandant’s absence overmuch, and she does not intend to highlight it, not when his presence is Taiga’s last defense against Nerine. Not even though Heartfire has threatened that as well, that Lepis still lives only for her ties to Wolfbane.
There are other possible solutions to the problem of Nerine: the capture of Heartfire, setting the kingdom ablaze and allowing Nerenians refuge only if they swear fealty, a heartfelt apology from Lepis. All equally distasteful, with the exception of the last, which is above and beyond the least plausible.
“Tell me about your family?” Lepis says, and while the change of topic is abrupt, the Comtesse phrases it as a question, one that Lilliana might decline if she so wished. “I know you are not from Beqanna, and that your mother wished you to be a diplomat, but that is all. Do you have siblings?” An only child, Lepis has always been curious about siblings, both for her own interest as well as to know exactly what she might have inflicted on her own brood by not simply stopping at Pteron.
@[lilliana]
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