She doesn’t anticipate tears from this woman who had so boldly walked into a foreign kingdom without a second thought. She doesn’t expect that she will have to bear the weight of a grieving widow. In learning of Lion’s death, Tantalize seems built stronger (emotionally if not physically) than Talulah. If she had heard Tiphon had died (or Ramiel, or Eldrian, or Tiberios, or any of her friends) she truly doesn’t know how’d she’d react. Selfishly, she’s glad she doesn’t have to find out today; she’s glad she is on the giving and not receiving end of such news.
Oh. The syllable exhaled by the other mare is so quiet, she thinks she’s imagined it at first. Oh means it’s not the answer she’s expected. Oh is a searing disappointment as understanding travels from ears to brain, then brain to heart. It’s a shared loss, at least, though it will probably be little comfort to Tantalize. She doesn’t know how Lion had ruled the Dale. She doesn’t know that he’d ruled young orphan Talulah’s life in much the same way: as the wise, patient, golden teacher. Sure, he’d had his faults. He’d come to them as a raiding rebel, after all, back when a mercenary group had overtaken the silent land. But he had stayed because he grew to love it and its people. He’d been too quiet at times - wrapped up in whatever else held pieces of his heart – but he’d always come back to the welcoming arms of his people.
Talulah’s own breath catches in her throat when she remembers it all. Sometimes it’s too easy to overlook the past and take it for granted. Often, one forgets to remember the dead and their exceeding impact on the still-living. Inadvertently inducing grief in the jungle mare makes her relive her own. She finds it cathartic, dredging up memories of the old pegasus. She realizes, though, that’s it’s still a fresh wound she herself has opened for Tantalize, a wound she still cannot place the source of. Because even as she says it, the brown mare looks down, averting her gaze from where it had been held with Talulah’s. She looks past the hooded eyes, sees shame where she ought to have seen only raw grief. What had Lion held over this foreign mare?
She soon confirms the Daleans’ suspicions. Lovers. Of course. Only love could make sense of her reaction. That Lion had a secret life apart from the Dale doesn’t surprise the metal mare. Surely he’d had his own tragedies and triumphs that he kept away from the public eye. Tantalize says it hadn’t ended well, and she wonders if the shame stems from this fact. Perhaps the jaguar girl had broken it off herself and regretted it after. She can’t imagine how wrong she is in this assumption. “I’m sorry,” she repeats again, because she is. And then because she wants to lift the other’s spirits some, in whatever small amount she can, she adds, “I can assure you he was much loved by the Dale and its people.”
t a l u l a h
metal woman of the dale