[open] i want the world in my hands

[Straia]

sometimes we want what we want --
    -- even if we know it’s going to kill us.

She does not consider herself on the side of light. If the world is truly black and white, then she is black through and through to the very core. Yet, the world is not so very black and white at all, but so many shades of gray. Some are darker, some lighter, but they all mix and blend and meld until you lose the lines between them. She is not good, but is it so very bad to want power, to crave not necessarily destruction but simply whatever it takes to achieve the goals that she sets before herself?

There are plenty who would say, without hesitation, that of course such things are bad. The ends do not justify the means. Maybe they are right. Or maybe they are simply too afraid to do what it takes to turn their dreams into reality. The latter seems more likely, that those who judge the rest of them evil do so because they do not have the stomach to be more.

Hello? calls a voice. The raven turns his eyes first, and then Straia, as if the bird was scouting for her before she could be bothered. A mare has appeared, looking entirely unequipped to exist in the winter. Though clearly equine, the other mare appears to be part fish, fins sprouting where her mane and tail should be. Strange. Though there seemed to be an ever growing number of strange things in Beqanna. How different than when she lived.

“Fine,” she says, voice nonchalant, as if the weather wasn’t a raging winter storm around her. Then again, she found that the weather didn’t bother her. The snow instead seemed to part around her, and though she was cool she was not cold. Straia was still not entirely sure what she was capable of now, but she could taste the world on her tongue and it was tantalizing. “Alive,” she adds, a hint of her old Cheshire grin appearing on her face.

“Straia,” she offers, nodding her head slightly. If she were human, she’d extend a manicured hand, fingers painted red, and you’d have to wonder for a moment if you were supposed to shake it or kiss it. As it is, she can only nod, and yet the gesture feels the same. “I suppose you must be cold,” she says, extending the strange protection to cover the other mare as well. It is not heat, but merely a barrier, leaving the elements tangible and yet bearable. “Better, I hope?”

She pauses for a moment, waiting for the mare to accept the offer to decline to stay. Well, there was a third option to step out of the protective bubble and then stick around, but that seemed like a fools option and Straia hoped this mare was not a fool. “I admit, it’s been quite some time since I’ve been in Beqanna. What can you tell me of her now?”

-- straia

the raven queen

@[Aquaria]