06-09-2019, 10:50 AM
“I’m ready to go,” she says to her husband one midsummer evening.
The winds stream around their stone spire perch and ruffle the feathers of the pegasi’s wings. Lepis bends a blue muzzle in a futile attempt to smooth them, first her tricolored ones and then Wolfbane’s snow white. The movement is familiar and habitual, a mental balm as well as physical. Long shadows stretch over the earth below them – streaks of black against the red and yellow sandstone. This is the view she was raised with; the only one she’s ever really loved.
Yet she is ready now, ready to find another one.
We need power, Wolfbane had said.
For Lepis, that power had at first been fiery rage. It simmered unchecked in her golden chest for some time, but as the heat of the season increased and the rest of Beqanna seemed to forget about the war, the flame had grown smaller. Let the rest of them think that a lack of smoke means that there is no fire, that Lepis accepts the death of her young son at the hands of Tephra without asking retribution, that the blue-haired woman would so easily forgive Sylva’s disrespect. Without power, she is nothing; no more important than a quiet herdmare, without rank or title.
It is time to change that.
The tobiano mares cares little for the lands beyond Loess. She’s been to few of them, never interested in staying long. They will change that now, she knows; soon a new place will be home.
At her feet is a flat yellow stone. Lepis nudges it with the edge of her hoof, flipping it over to reveal that the opposite side has far more obvious ripples of red.
“What do you think?” She muses aloud. “Yellow for Taiga, red for Nerine?”
Lepis asks mostly for herself, but her blue grey eyes do flick toward her mate for confirmation. Nodding once – decisive – the dun mare reaches down, grasps the stone between her teeth, and tosses it up into the air. It spins through the sunset light for a moment, clattering down a few meters away with a soft puff of dust. The yellow side of the stone is tilted just slightly toward her.
Lepis smiles.
The winds stream around their stone spire perch and ruffle the feathers of the pegasi’s wings. Lepis bends a blue muzzle in a futile attempt to smooth them, first her tricolored ones and then Wolfbane’s snow white. The movement is familiar and habitual, a mental balm as well as physical. Long shadows stretch over the earth below them – streaks of black against the red and yellow sandstone. This is the view she was raised with; the only one she’s ever really loved.
Yet she is ready now, ready to find another one.
We need power, Wolfbane had said.
For Lepis, that power had at first been fiery rage. It simmered unchecked in her golden chest for some time, but as the heat of the season increased and the rest of Beqanna seemed to forget about the war, the flame had grown smaller. Let the rest of them think that a lack of smoke means that there is no fire, that Lepis accepts the death of her young son at the hands of Tephra without asking retribution, that the blue-haired woman would so easily forgive Sylva’s disrespect. Without power, she is nothing; no more important than a quiet herdmare, without rank or title.
It is time to change that.
The tobiano mares cares little for the lands beyond Loess. She’s been to few of them, never interested in staying long. They will change that now, she knows; soon a new place will be home.
At her feet is a flat yellow stone. Lepis nudges it with the edge of her hoof, flipping it over to reveal that the opposite side has far more obvious ripples of red.
“What do you think?” She muses aloud. “Yellow for Taiga, red for Nerine?”
Lepis asks mostly for herself, but her blue grey eyes do flick toward her mate for confirmation. Nodding once – decisive – the dun mare reaches down, grasps the stone between her teeth, and tosses it up into the air. It spins through the sunset light for a moment, clattering down a few meters away with a soft puff of dust. The yellow side of the stone is tilted just slightly toward her.
Lepis smiles.
