They have always been the uninvited;
That is why they are a nation of nightmares, murderers, and thieves (they’ll take your skin, your heart, your very soul!).
She breathes in the sulfur as a mare moves to meet them; her eyes and face seem to light up in recognition of Pollock and Sinew continues to let her own gaze stray across the volcanic landscape. No name is offered, nor reason as to why they’ve come - she keeps quiet, and they think her this and more, like obedient but that is a lie and one that she adheres to for now. Pollock knows she is anything but obedient, and she bides her time there amongst the growing group of Tephrans and their own emergent King.
Sinew is sharp-eyed and slack-muscled in her stance;
They name themselves one by one, and one mare looks peaceful and inviting but the other is harsh in her approach of them - hardened, by battle surely. Their king falls somewhere in between, scarred and wary but not altogether unkind in his look. Sinew redirects her black eyes towards the three of them and spares but a glance to Pollock as he talks.
(She has seen it - that one small touch that implicates so much gentleness and love into one tiny act and in her mind, it is a small insight into the mare that stands so staunchly before them. It is a small opening into an otherwise impenetrable force and she almost - almost - smiles. Like him, her brain does not recognize love as something soft and sweet - it knows only brutality and the ways that love can hurt.)
“Sinew,” she offers at last, as Pollock spews garbage about diplomacy and neighbors in the nicest way possible.
That is why they are a nation of nightmares, murderers, and thieves (they’ll take your skin, your heart, your very soul!).
She breathes in the sulfur as a mare moves to meet them; her eyes and face seem to light up in recognition of Pollock and Sinew continues to let her own gaze stray across the volcanic landscape. No name is offered, nor reason as to why they’ve come - she keeps quiet, and they think her this and more, like obedient but that is a lie and one that she adheres to for now. Pollock knows she is anything but obedient, and she bides her time there amongst the growing group of Tephrans and their own emergent King.
Sinew is sharp-eyed and slack-muscled in her stance;
They name themselves one by one, and one mare looks peaceful and inviting but the other is harsh in her approach of them - hardened, by battle surely. Their king falls somewhere in between, scarred and wary but not altogether unkind in his look. Sinew redirects her black eyes towards the three of them and spares but a glance to Pollock as he talks.
(She has seen it - that one small touch that implicates so much gentleness and love into one tiny act and in her mind, it is a small insight into the mare that stands so staunchly before them. It is a small opening into an otherwise impenetrable force and she almost - almost - smiles. Like him, her brain does not recognize love as something soft and sweet - it knows only brutality and the ways that love can hurt.)
“Sinew,” she offers at last, as Pollock spews garbage about diplomacy and neighbors in the nicest way possible.