"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
Offspring had stepped down, she gave birth to her son, and they lived happily ever after. A family unit for once in her life. Something solid, something real. She tried to do better than she had before, to make up for the mistakes she had made in the past. It was easy with him at her side, easier when she fell asleep nestled into his smoldering skin as if she had been made to fit there. But one day he started to drift. Started to grow more and more distant, as if something was taking him away. Something that had far more pull than her. He had always blamed the weight of the crown for the heaviness he wore on his shoulders but it became clear to her that something else hung there as well. Life seemed to catch up to Offspring, seemed to steal him away from her. Until one day she woke up and he was simply gone.
She had never found his body but she knew, being a creature of fire and brimstone herself.
She knew when his flame had snuffed out from this existence.
Liz tried to tell herself that maybe he would be back, maybe in this world of magic he had been sent somewhere else. Maybe he wasn’t dead.
She had thought her heart broken when Lion had assaulted her and destroyed whatever love that had once been between them. This though... Nothing could be compared to this pain. This time her heart had completely shattered and she knew it would never heal again.
So she failed him, the perfect (and only) son who looked like an exact replica of the lover she had lost. Just as she couldn’t bring herself to look at the daughters who reminded her of Lion, she couldn’t stand to look upon Obscene and constantly see Offspring's face looking back at her. It was an old habit, an easy one to pick back up, when she began to withdraw deeper into the jungle. There had been a thought to return to Nerine but she didn’t want to face Nayl, hadn’t wanted to see anyone and didn’t want anyone to see her. What would they think to see the once proud Khaleesi fallen once more, how the loss of him had destroyed her so utterly.
Tantalize had always been the jungle's creature and that is where she returned, remembering the old ways of the Amazons and easily evading those that might have sought her out. She kept to the darkness, kept to the tangled depths that only those with experience in trekking through such thick and dangerous undergrowth could manage. She faded from the living world and waited for age to take her just as it had him.
For some reason she had a stubborn will to live.
Drifting for years, a wild and feral thing, seemingly forgotten to the residents of Tephra as if she had never been there at all. Until today, when one who also was taught the ways of the jungle (taught by her) pushes past the foliage with a smoky horn, passion flowers entangled in her dark hair. Faint dappled spots on her neck that match the predator ones on herself. Slowly her golden eyes look up and find a similar pair staring back to her. In a voice that shows years of disuse, she manages that faint smile on her dark lips and ruffles the dark unkempt feathers at her side. “Daughter.” She greets, gazing at her warily but somewhat pleased. Pleased that the ways of the Amazon had not been forgotten and that she had taught her so well. “I wondered when one of you would find me.”
It hadn’t been that hard to find her after all, one simply needed to know where to look.
An easy smile finds her own dark lips as she gazes at her mother, unable to keep the hint of worry from her gaze. Tantalize had always been a beautiful mare and even in her older years she still was. But she can see the unkempt state of her coat, the bedraggled wings, the thick knots and tangles in the dark strands of her mane, how her bones seem to jut out a little too much. “Mom.” She greets quietly, no disgust or anger there. She had never begrudged her mother for what she was or what she had gone through. She wouldn’t judge her now. She never would.
“I wondered when one of you would find me.” She tilts her head slightly as she regards her, wondering if this meant that Vinny or Cersei were still around. Unaware of the newest addition to the little sibling fold, a boy no less. A wiry smile is given as she looks at her dam. “I never forgot the ways of the jungle.” She pauses, her own golden eyes flitting about the dark vines that her mother calls home. “And I see neither did you.”
Another pause as she hesitates. She’s not sure why she had sought her out to begin with. Maybe just to know that she was still alive, because she was the only family that was still left to her knowledge? Now that she had found what she had been searching for, she had no idea what to do with it. “What happened?” She finally asks because something has obviously happened to make her hide amongst vine and fern. Her mother had never been one to back down from a fight but this felt different. She seemed different. And then it finally hits her, the wrongness of her mother.
How dull her golden eyes seem, the spark they lack. The Tantalize she had known had crackled with an energy that she had always admired. But it was missing, that fire in her soul seemed to have fanned out. Her mother was no longer consumed by fire but instead was filled with ash.
They may call me a sinner, but I am at peace with myself;
Bardot looks different from the last time she had seen her. Granted, that had been many many years ago. Yet her second born still looks fresh faced, young. A horn that had certainly not been there when she had given birth to her now spirals from her forehead. The flowers in her hair don’t particularly draw her eye, normal to someone who calls the rain forest home. “I never forgot.” She says and Liz dips her head slightly in acknowledgment. “No, you wouldn’t.” There is an unexpected warmth in the tone of her voice. Bardot had always been treated as her Heir, the one she would have chosen if she had managed to keep her throne. If she had been stronger in the wake of Lion's betrayal.
Out of all her children, the buckskin girl (how much she reminds her of Uncle Magnus) had always been the most similar to her. Better than her even, learning at a young age how to thrive and survive in a hard and cruel world. She had never known what it felt like to be broken, she thinks. She hopes she never will.
The words are not easy to come by when Bardot questions her and asks why she was here under the pretense of “What happened?” “Life, as it so often does.” Is her only response as she shrugs slightly. Dirty raven feathers, crusted with earth and debris, unfurl slightly at her sides. They start to ache if not stretched every day. She hasn’t flown in years.
There is silence for a moment as they both listen to the throaty croak of poisonous frogs, the chuffing of a lurking jungle cat, the gurgle of water from somewhere in the distance. “Why you are here is the more important question.” The elder Khaleesi had never seen the point in beating around the bush and sees no point in starting now.
She can’t help the smile she gives even though annoyance flickers in the depths of gold. Evasive as ever, her mother. “I’m living in Taiga now.” She starts, watching the expression on her dams face closely. To see if there is any recognition there. Nothing seems to flicker across her features so she continues. “I just wanted to see if you were still around.” She finally manages lamely, shuffling her hooves and feeling like she was a stupid yearling again.
It bothers her, seeing the lines of age in her face, the graying around her dark muzzle and among the black feathers of her dirty wings. Her mother wasn’t immortal by any means that she was aware of, how much longer did she have? She doesn't want to leave her here, to let her continue in this wretched hermit existence she had created for herself. If there was one thing she knew well is that there was no forcing the jaguar mare, her father had found that out the hard way.
“You could come with me you know.” She finally manages, her voice soft enough to get lost in the noise of the rainforest. But she knows she can hear her regardless, that her voice finds its way to the gray tipped curve of a bay ear. You don't have to do this alone, is what she wants to say. Wants to remind her what the Sisterhood had stood for and what it could still mean. That at the end of the day she was still her mother, for better or worse. But she doesn't, the long engrained deference to her former Khaleesi hard to break. As if she could ever convince Tantalize to do anything least of all listen to her.
They may call me a sinner, but I am at peace with myself;
A shake of her head, that faint smile on her lips. “No. Your life is there but mine is here.” There is fear to emerge back into the living world, fear to face the consequences of her actions, fear to face her guilt. And there is pain (so much pain) because it’s already too hard living in this world without him. How can she pretend to enjoy life when every second is spent aching with her grief for him, every minute taken up by the constant shredding rhythm of this heart that refuses to quit beating.
How can she face their son?
It is better to fade away from memory until her bones become part of the place she had always loved. However she doesn't forget the name of this place where her daughter calls home, storing it away more out of habit then any intention of using such information.
She hesitates for a moment before adding more gently. “But you know where to find me. If you should need me.” She begins to fade back into the vines, dappled spots of white, gold, and black catching in the few glints of sunlight that manage to slip through the thick canopy above. “You should know…” She pauses, hesitates again. “There's another one of you now. A boy. But I don't know where he is.” The only colt she had ever birthed. Even that is too much, thinking of the first time he had opened those bright red eyes to her. The eyes of his father. Her throat constricts with words unsaid, as unshed tears sting the corner of her eyes. Tears that will never fall, cheeks that will remain dry.
With a finally look at her daughter she ruffles her wings again and then she is gone, slipping back into the darkness from whence she had come.
![[Image: BQjeje-Bardot2.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/T37nJTF6/BQjeje-Bardot2.png)