lepis, comtesse of taiga
RUN AND TELL ALL OF THE ANGELS; THIS COULD TAKE ALL NIGHT
i think i need a devil to help me get things right
Never for a moment does it occur to her that Castile might be without the magics that make him the dragon king. True, it is uncommon for him to remain purely equine for long, without even the wings or the tail. True, he does smell infinitesimally less of fire than he had before. But when a thing is burned into the flesh and into the soil year after year, some things remain. Lepis nearly reaches out (if she had, she might have begun to suspect a change) to brush her muzzle along his shoulder, but at the last moment refrains.
It is one thing to hold her children to her. She is not sure she could stand anything else, even from a man she has known since childhood.
Not now. Not anymore.
But at his thanks Lepis does relax, a softening of her shoulders, a subtle resettling of her weight. The tobiano stallion continues, and the dun Comtesse nods. His interaction with the northern queen had been little different than her own, though it seems Castile was threatened with the breaking of friendship while the stick intended to keep Lepis in line was literal destruction. The dun mare huffs irritably, and her lack of addition t owhat he has to say all but indicates hre full agreement. No matter who makes the first move, they will be blamed. That is a mistake Lepis had learned during the events leading up to her son’s death. It is not a mistake she means to make again.
“No,” she responds sharply. There is a command in her voice, command he had taught her. The pegasus’ tone would brook nothing less than obedience, yet is it softened as she reaches out and says more softly: “No.” and tugs playfully at his mane. Like a child to her father, not a woman to a man. That she can stand, it seems. It makes the admission that follows easier, almost. Surrounded by the simpler emotions of childhood, it is nearly painless to admit that “I want to come home.”
She can’t bring herself to admit that she has failed, not yet. Not aloud. Not ever, most likely, but she can admit that she wants to come home. Admitting that she has failed means acknowledging why, and she has sworn to not think of him. “I want to come home, and prove that I am ready to lead Loess again.” Like she’d done as a girl, though the balance had been a little different. Then she had been a girl given a crown, and now she is a woman asking for one. She might have failed with Taiga, but she could never fail Loess.
“I suspect my heir is more loyal to Taiga and to the North than he is to me.” Lepis tells him. “I fear that to leave leadership with him is to lose what little progress I have made.” For all her tone of command earlier, it is clear she leaves the decision of what to do with this up to the Loessian King. Heartfire consider herself the Queen of Taiga, but she leaves the appointment of its leader up to Castile. She has been an independent agent here, but if she intends to serve in Loess, she knows that means to serve under Castile.
At least for now.
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