i feel trouble on the rise | oceane

[Lepis]

again you’re gone, off on a different path than mine i'm left behind wondering if i should follow Lepis’ heart is pounding, the scrape along her elbow stings nearly as badly as the bruise forming on her hip, and she’s not unsure the littlest bone at the edge of her right wing isn’t broken. The dust around them is settling, and her blue-grey eyes find the opalescent mare only after reassuring herself that the horned would-be thief has disappeared Most of the encounter is still a blur, but she recalls being woken abruptly and herded by moonlight toward east. Too surprised to react, and then too bewildered by the stallion’s ability to predict her every move, Lepis hadn’t even put up a fight. Not until Oceane arrived, her wings bright and enormous in the dark night, had Lepis come back to herself. The two of them had been enough to overwhelm the stranger and send him scampering back to Pangea. Still struggling to catch her breath, the dun mare shakes her head. But she doesn’t wake – this is not a dream. First they’d come for the child, and Lepis had let herself think that was the end of it. Surely an envoy would come any day, ready to parlay for the exchange of the king’s son. That is how things are done, and yet it had not been how it happened. Instead, they’ve come again in the dark of night and left Lepis gasping for breath and startled beneath the moonlight. “Are you okay?” She asks, unable to see much in darkness. Lepis stretches out her right wing and decides it’s probably just fractured rather than broken. It is far from the worst pain she has felt, and yet the shock of it is sharper than she had expected. “I didn’t see much of him but horns,” Her breath is a hiss as she shakes out the leg of her bruised hip. “Thank you. I’m not much of a fighter; you saved me.” 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

@[Oceane]

[Oceane]

O C E A N E

Her heart still beats wild with adrenaline and fear, and her lungs still force her to take deep, gasping breaths ─ but despite this natural bodily reaction to danger, there's an apathy and listlessness inside of Oceane. She had smelled the scent on the wind as she floated silently over a sleeping Loess, the same one that had been left in the wake of Alcinder's disappearance, and she had turned her wings against the wind so swiftly and so aggressively that it had hurt. But it was not her son being returned to her.

The Loessian woman had folded her wings against her iridescent frame and fell to the earth, throwing her feathered appendages open wide just in time to land with a force that made her legs ache. Together, she and Lepis had driven him away, but all the while she had screamed at him: "Where is my son?! WHERE IS MY SON?! Where is my son!" The question had turned to sobs when she realized he had no intention of telling her; and now that he is gone, she lay upon the dark ground with her wings still unfurled and mournful against the ground.

Lepis asks if she is okay and the inquiry seizes her throat tight. The backs of her amber eyes prickle with the threat of tears and she exhales slowly, shakily, before turning her gaze away from the darkness and toward the blue-and-gold pegasus. "I think so," she whispers, the words cracking. Her entire body aches, but from a combination of things: her haphazard landing, the altercation with the horned stallion, the despair that has filled her since Alcinder had gone missing.

Lepis mentions the stallion's horns and disgust swirls in Oceane's stomach as she nods ─ "His eyes. He had red eyes." Her view of them had been fleeting, but they had nearly glowed beneath the silver rays of the moon. At Lepis' thanks, the opalescent woman allows the tears that swell in her eyes to fall across the blue and purple of her face; she can't acknowledge her friend with words, but instead succumbs to body-quaking tears at the feeling of failure that she had not been there to save her son when he had so desperately needed her.


@[Lepis]
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n | t

[Lepis]

again you’re gone, off on a different path than mine i'm left behind wondering if i should follow Though Oceane says she is alright, Lepis is doubtful. She’d meant only of injuries from this scuffle with the Pangean stranger, but her question had been accidentally loaded – there is more damage to the opalescent mare than what this one night has inflicted. “We’ll get him back,” the promise is spoken softly, just before she presses her blue muzzle against the downed Oceane’s shoulder. Lepis is not free with physical affection, but there is something about the purple mare that makes her worth it. Lepis does not form (or hold, it seems) friendships easily, but Oceane is one of those few, despite the novelty of their relationship. She’d seen something of herself in the other mare, and now as Oceane lies weeping she sees far more of herself than she’d ever wanted too. When Gale had been taken, her reaction had been no different. This, she thinks, might even be worse. There is no telling where Alcinder is, save that he is almost certainly in a land rumored to be filled with monsters. Surely that uncertainty is worse than death, Lepis thinks. The possibility that he is being harmed rears its ugly head, and Lepis does her best to brush it aside. She can do so more easily than Oceane, she imagines. “We’ll get him back,” the dun mare repeats. “Whoever took him will regret doing so. I promise.” This promise she intends to keep, even if the way she will do so remains hazy. Some things are worth promising without a plan in place, and this is one of them. Though she cannot yet fathom how she might recover a child, especially in this world where physical power is the deciding factor, Lepis is sure that she will. And then, with another touch to Oceane to futilely straighten to the fall of her purple mane, adds: “This isn’t your fault.” The words are what she’d needed to hear after Gale’s death, when she was blaming herself, and she suspects Oceane might need them as well. 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

@[Oceane]

[Oceane]

O C E A N E

We'll get him back.

Oceane nods slowly, aimlessly, at Lepis' quiet statement ─ it's all she can find the energy to do between the powerfully painful sobs that grip her opalescent body tight. She leans into the dun woman's touch when it's offered ─ the kind warmth of her muzzle fills Oceane with gratitude for her friend and reminds her that she isn't alone despite the hollow pit in her stomach that makes her feel otherwise.

She nods again when Lepis repeats her assertion and presses her own muzzle to the other pegasus when she promises to do so. Her heart swells with appreciation for this offered friendship and for the first time in weeks, she feels the tiniest tendril of hope blossom from the darkness within her.

This isn't your fault.

A gasping breath falls from her ajar maw. Her tear-filled, red-rimmed amber eyes meet Lepis' and she wonders if the woman is capable of reading her mind; it draws tears down her cheeks more swiftly and, as much as she wants to believe what her companion has s said, she finds it impossible to believe that this would have happened if she had just handled things differently the night that Aquaria had visited. "Thank you, Lepis," she whispers meekly into the darkness.

It's all she can bear to say for a long moment and then, feeling a sense of kinship with Lepis, she is finally able to tell the story she had never told anyone outside of Nau-Aib ─ the story of her mother's (the Queen's) adultery, of her peasant father, of the King who punished her for her lineage. She tells Lepis of the King's law: any son born to the members of the Royal Court would be murdered if not a descendant of the King.

And Oceane tells her of her two sons, born years apart to her and the stallion who'd once been her partner, who had been torn from her before they'd even fed for the first time ─ both tortured by the King, and then killed by the King's dragons.

The story is long and difficult and the content draws harsher sobs from the opaline woman, but finally she concludes the tale of her past and meets Lepis' eyes with a combination of despair and fury ─ "I can't lose another child, Lepis, I can't. I will let them take my life if it means Alcinder is returned safely to Loess."


@[Lepis]
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n | t

[Lepis]

again you’re gone, off on a different path than mine i'm left behind wondering if i should follow Though she tries to comfort the other mare, there is only so much that words can do. Her magick would be more effective, the dun mare knows, but it is temporary. When the projection fades, the pain would return, and the return would be worse for the guilt of forgetting. She’s felt it herself a thousand times, after all, in the months after Gale’s absence and during the last of her time in Taiga and the start of it here. What she will inflict on herself though, she will not give another. So instead she gives what she can, holding Oceane as tightly as the other will let her, drawing back to brush the salty tears from the other woman’s cheek as gently as she can. The purple pegasus whispers thanks and Lepis shakes her head softly – thanks aren’t deserved yet. She has not yet fixed this. Not yet, but she will. Her still-forming plans fall to the wayside as Oceane begins her story. Lepis is quiet through the whole of it, her blue-grey eyes gone soft in empathy. She does not interrupt, but she does shake her head from time to time – feeding children to dragons? Punishing a child for the crimes of their ancestors? Her heart aches for the opalescent mare in front of her, whose tale is different from Lepis’ only in the type of suffering endured. Only when Oceane finishes the tale does the dark-haired mare speak. “You won’t lose him,” Her voice is as firm as Oceane’s as furious, as determined as the other is despairing. “And it will not take your life to do it.” I won’t let it, goes unsaid; Lepis means to achieve this through sheer force of will if it is necessary. It won’t be, she is already thinking; there are already things in motion. She’d meant to make alternate trades, but what good are granite cliffs and frozen islands when weighed against the life of a child? Before she loses herself in these thoughts though (as she knows she is often prone to do), she affixes her gaze on the violet mare again, and presses her muzzle gently to the other’s shoulder. “You are strong,” Lepis tells her. “Stronger than you look,” the mare adds, and there is the ghost of a smile at the edge of her mouth, at the reminder that a pretty face is not indicative of weakness. “We will get him back together.” 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

[Oceane]

O C E A N E

There comes a time, after Oceane's heartbeat has steadied to its normal pace and her ducts have dried themselves of any more tears, that the opalescent woman finally finds the ambition to fold her massive feathered wings back to her sides and shift her weight to her shaky, aching legs. When finally she has risen, the Loessian woman shakes the stiffness from her joints and turns her puffy amber eyes to the moonlit sky.

She watches what she can see of the grey clouds as they sweep in front of the silvered moon before turning her gaze back to the dun friend at her side. Stronger than you look, Lepis says, and Oceane almost smiles; she feels a kinship forming with the Cleric and wonders if it's because they have both endured the flames of hell.

"Thank you," she says again once Lepis' speech has faded to silence, "For your friendship. I─" she starts to mention their last full conversation, wants to tell the Cleric that she had sought out Sochi to tell her about Alcinder, but those things are not important now. Later, she thinks, she will tell the blue-accented mare about that conversation.

"Should we find Castile? To tell him about the red-eyed intruder?"


@[Lepis]
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