[open] lost in the woods; any

[Lepis]

again you’re gone, off on a different path than mine i'm left behind wondering if i should follow The smiles on Lepis’ face remains despite her lack of familiarity with the horse she finds beside her, though it shifts from easy fondness to something more distant but not less than polite. Her days of excitement over meeting someone new are not long gone, but they are no less surely gone. With her choice to remain solitary here in Loess, she has no need to forge relationships for diplomacy, and Lepis has come to realize that friends are fickle things. Faithful until their chance at being a leader’s wife is stripped away from them, or until their Comtesse’s husband pulls them into an embrace. She has her children, and that is enough for her. (Or so she tells herself, knowing well that she could only find two on any given day – the others are missing or avoid her entirely.) The unicorn is a stranger, though he smells enough of the hilly kingdom that Lepis suspects he is one of the residents that have come since her absence. He endears himself to her slightly in his admiration for the beauty of Loess. “One of my favorites,” she agrees, taking a moment to note his features – blue and yellow and white. The colors are familiar, even if he is not, but Lepis is not suspicious. In this world color is as novel as wings; there is nothing suspicious about a coincidence. After a moment, she follows the gaze of the out-of-breath stallion and looks back down into the valley. “I wonder if this is how the Fairies see us,” she muses aloud as two black-dot horses meet in the snow far beneath them, “Just little dots moving about aimlessly. At least until we climb up the Mountain, I suppose.” She’s climbed the Mountain herself, and the bitter wind and a cold nose were all she’d gotten for her efforts. There are some things that the fates are not interested in intervening in, it seems, and Lepis cannot blame them. She takes a deep breath, a habit she has picked up since choosing to use her magic less, and turns back to the stallion. “I’m Lepis, by the way. What’s your name?” LEPIS i’m the one who sees you home-- but now i’m lost in the woods and i don’t know what path you are on

@[Wolfbane]