everything we are, it just went away
with a slide of the tongue and a sour taste
She’s decided that she deserves a break.
Parenting twins is hard – who would have thought? She had known that it wouldn't be all fun and games being a mother, but she never imagined that it would be quite this difficult, with two rambunctious lion cubs for daughters and an entire kingdom depending on her to up her game and step up to the plate. Ilma was right; it’s going to be hard for her and Clayton to mature enough and learn enough in the mere year that she had allotted them, but she’ll be damned if she doesn’t even try.
But today, she is tired. Today she leaves the twins in the safety of the Cove and heads towards the field, hoping to find a new face to lure to her beautiful home. The last time she was here she had met the lovely Thia, a strange but kind mare. It has been probably a year since then, and she knows she needs to make a better effort to make Silver Cove thrive again. There are other kingdoms that are so much more active than her own, and with their relationship with Pangea being so rocky... she wants all of the friendly faces she can get in the Cove.
She sees the oddly colored pair from a ways off, and smiles as she turns in their direction. Her body has mostly recovered from the long birth of several weeks ago, and she looks about the same as any other four-year-old, thankfully. A sagging, tired mess of a mare wouldn’t make a good impression on anyone.
The stallion is orange and black, with blazing yellow eyes that draw her attention as she nears them. The mare, she realizes, must be Chryseis. Her golden blaze is unmistakable, though she had yet to meet Rhaegor’s girlfriend. She manages to catch the stallion’s name – Amenhotep – and his rapidly spoken words, all running over each other like a stream over the rocks. She offers him a sad smile as she joins their small group, dark eyes wistful as she takes a glance around to what must have been a bustling place not many years ago.
“There was a plague,” she tells him, not wanting to hide things from this newcomer. “Rather, there is a plague. It has ravaged our lands and taken hold in some of our most beloved friends and family members. We are fighting desperately to find a cure before any more lives are lost to it.”
She breaks off suddenly, and if she could blush, she’d have turned scarlet. “Ah, forgive me,” she mumbles, chuckling sheepishly. “How morbid of me, and I haven’t even given you my name. I’m Dawn.”
She glances to Chryseis, almost afraid to meet her eye – did Rhae tell her what I said to him? – before looking back to Amen, unsure of how to continue. “I hail from one of the few lands that has been granted immunity by the Beqanna fairies, Silver Cove. We are the leaders of the east, also known as the Sanctuary.”
Dawn
oh, it's gonna be a long night