anyone;

[Nayl]

She spun the stars on her fingernails She could not have expected herself to stay away. The Jungle knows its blood and how deeply it traverses through the veins of its children. It knows how tightly clutched its vines are to the souls of the women here. There is nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Amazons die as amazons. They do not stray and they do not falter in their loyalties. They are a unique breed, the women of the Jungle. And so Nayl does not hesitate when she hears the familiar whisperings of the wind. She doesn’t turn her back to the hushed crooning of her home. Her heart leaps and she is worried for a fleeting moment as her tattoos fade into nothing as though they never existed. A frown creases her lips. Her gold-flecked eyes stare at her chest, then her shoulder, then climb up toward the trees. A torrent of thoughts swirls inside her, but she doesn’t bide anymore time. With her heart leaping from her chest Nayl takes the worn trail to the place she has ever known to be home. The sea of emerald opens in front of her. In there is a wilderness not seen anywhere else in this world. A smile, coy and somehow adoring, lifts the corners of her mouth. A breath is drawn in, the air pregnant with humidity and thick with the screeches of monkeys and birds alike. Her hooves ground themselves at the border, her mind entirely uncertain. She has lived here her entire life. Does she walk in as a sister that had been lost? Or does she take pause and let them find her as though she were a common newcomer? Sinewy muscles contract beneath her sleek coat as her eyes reduce to narrow slits. Her sisters are in there, alive and flourishing, but she is trapped on the outskirts like an intruder. Another breath is drawn into her lungs before she comes to a decision. The Jungle doesn’t reject her. It knows its blood, but at the same time, it doesn’t let her venture far. Nayl pauses, still close to the borders but at least partially in her home’s welcoming embrace. Nayl covet and myrina's creation

[riva]

i don't love you;

but i always will.

The Jungle accepts her, but it does not recognize her blood as having lain thick upon the loam at any point in time. Riva doesn’t know much of her bloodline in all honesty, or how she is a distant relation to the very Queen that leads them. She knows enough, to know that the Tundra and Dale are more like to claim her but she shuns both kingdoms for reasons all her own. Blood is not always thicker than water, and Riva was always more like an oil slick than anything else.

She has taken the oath; sworn herself to land and sisterhood alike.

They are her bloodline now, mothers as much as daughters, sisters and aunts of a kind.

Lexa is fond of the capybaras that move through the Jungle.

The rest are enamored of the monkeys and the birds.

Riva likes the snakes and the crocodiles, even though she is not cold-blooded like that.

There is a mare, isn’t there always? That the bay tovero comes across in the midst of her daily travels; she cannot claim they are patrols, she is not looking for intrusions beyond those made by the more familiar predators. But the paint mare catches her eye right away - paints seem to like the Jungle, maybe they adapt better to the heat and humidity that sucks the moisture right out of the marrow in their bones and slicks it across their necks and chests in a rich lather. She is tobiano to Riva’s tovero, and smokey black to her bay.

She seems to be experiencing a moment of indecision, or perhaps she is being blocked from further ingress by the Jungle and Riva finds that odd. What does the Jungle see that she doesn’t? The mare seems smooth in her actions, her recognition of the land apparent in the way her body is taut and fairly signing of its desire to be fully immersed in the Jungle’s embrace. Will it only take but a welcome from Riva to break this mare free? “You look eager to be amongst Her again.” It is evident who “Her” is as the bay tovero falls in line with the smokey black tobiano, and offers her a quick sisterly nudge of her nose. Riva is in a rare friendly mood apparently, or maybe she sympathizes with the stranger’s desire to give to the Jungle’s compulsion.

Riva

[Nayl]

She spun the stars on her fingernails Nayl peers up through her unruly forelock to the canopy. It’s the same as it has always been and yet there is still a deep stirring in her as though so much has changed. The trees rustle with fervor and for a fleeting moment she wonders if that is just her own consciousness seeping into the roots, bring the Jungle – her Jungle – to life. A smile tips up the corners of her mouth, but only slightly because she can hear someone looming near. Her ears twist and grope for the sound footsteps and a voice that cuts through the silence like a knife. ”Yes, yes I am,” she mutters without looking at the sister, drinking in the sight of a scarlet macaw before she does finally tilt her head down to see the woman. ”My home,” although her voice is strong, fierce, there is still a choking of emotion as her memories rise like the tide. ”I’ve only ever known the Jungle.” She doesn’t consider herself divulging too much; this is a sister of the Jungle, her sister when they both spoke the oath. Nayl’s moment had been long ago, but she has noted how the years are mere blinks to an immortal. When she thought time would speckle her face with gray hair or at least show that she has seen more than a decade, she found herself mistaken. The seasons have not affected her since she fully matured. Eternally young, she remembers whispering to herself when she came to the realization, like father. A lungful of air expands her chest. The humidity clings to her throat and lathers her coat in a thin layer of sweat. ”I’m Nayl,” she has no titles, not anymore. Her blood that runs rampant with past Amazon Queens, princesses, warriors, diplomats, all means nothing now. She is at the base of the totem pole, irrelevant until she scratches her name down in the history books. Just Nayl, she begins to tell herself, but then she remembers: she has never been “just Nayl” and she doesn’t plan to ever be just that, just a name lost in stories. Nayl covet and myrina's creation

[riva]

Riva follows the mare’s gaze to the scarlet macaw; they are truly beautiful birds, and sometimes parrot the mares in the Jungle. She has heard her name thrown back at her like a squawking echo from the mouth of the more common blue and gold macaws. But she tears her gaze back to the black tobiano as she talks of home, and this being the only place that she has ever known. Riva is faintly envious of that; she has never known the likes of permanence that a home can bring one, or how it can nestle deep inside the heart. The only things that ever nestled inside her heart had been bitterness and hate, and even those things are slowly losing out to the sisters and the way the land enfolds them in its lushness.

If anything could ever start to feel like home for her, it is here.
With them, all of them - old and new, sisters one and the same.

“A pleasure Nayl, I’m Riva.” and she’s not her usual feisty self, somehow more subdued as they look from the macaw to one another. Curiosity though, is ever present in her, beating like a second heart. “How long has it been since you were last here?” The upwell of emotion in the other’s voice had caught at Riva, tangled itself up in her ears until she had to sort out and marvel at the way the Jungle could be so heartfelt in its binding to their very selves. If she had to ask her own self that question, she could truthfully say that even for her, it was beginning to look a lot like home. Especially now that she had taken the oath, she could taste the permanence of her actions and it had never tasted sweeter than as if she had sipped honey-water from the gods’ own cup.

“It stays with you, doesn’t it?” she observes casually, as her eyes turn back out to the ever thickening expanse of green, the shades of which no two were ever alike.

[Lexa]

the dead are gone, and the living are hungry.

The Jungle is really enjoying an upswing in popularity these days. It seems that every other day she finds another newcomer on the border, another new recruit to fill their ranks. It’s nice to see the kingdom so full, so active. It’s been a long time since they had so many horses living within their borders.

She’s following along the northern border on yet another patrol, when the scent of another foreigner reaches her nose. Her guard isn’t immediately up - most visitors are newcomers to the kingdom these days - but her curiosity is peaked, and she immediately makes for the place that the scent is coming from.

When she does arrive, she can’t help but let out a small chuckle. Once again Riva has beaten her to the punch and discovered the newcomer, likely long before Lexa even got a hint of the scent. She nips playfully at the paint’s shoulder, before turning to look at the new mare.

The newcomer, another paint, looks ordinary to the eye, but Lexa has long known to not judge by appearance alone. There is something unusual though, in that she appears quite at home on the kingdom’s edge. This newcomer is clearly not a newcomer after all, but a long returned sister. Lexa gives her a friendly smile. “Hello, welcome to the Jungle. I am Lexa.”

lexa