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 |
