"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
The autum sun was unusually hot today mixing with the humidity of the morning fog that had crept across Taigas land causing small drops of sweat and water to sit tenderly on Lethy's back. The soft purple glow that eminated from her being was like a small beacon to all who passed close enough to where she stood.
She found herself in simple thoughts trying to push back the dam of abandonment she knew she would inevitably feel. The warmth of Aten's body was no more and the laughter of her son no longer graced the forest.
But she did not have time to feel such things. She had visited the mountain and the fairies had given her one more thing to commit to. If Aten was not here to defend the forest she would need to change things, change parts of herself.
After her almost fight for leadership and the realization that she had no way to defend the place she loved she sought for a way to change that. Aten had thought it a good idea to find the magic that would change him to dragon, could she do the same?
Her dark amethyst eyes found solace in the canopy above, her body riddled with stress - despite the blanket of peace she was trying so hard to maintain. Soon with out realizing where she was headed she found herself walking that thin border between Taiga and Loess. Her purple eyes scanned the comparatively flat land of Loess her thoughts turning towards @[Lepis] . She should find her, see how she is doing; see if their friendship still exists. With so much uncertainty she calls out for the mare she once called friend - hopefully she still would.
forget me not; but never remember
Lethy
Recycled starter, but I wanted to get something out!
The last time I had rested my blue-grey eyes on Izora Lethia was when she’d shaken her head in disgust at my decision to appoint my son as my heir rather than her husband. That had been nearly four years ago, I recall, and to this day is not a decision I regret. Pteron had been the best choice, for all his personal troubles, and I had never trusted Aten. Pteron had, and when he had chosen to leave the forest to the champagne Champion I had not objected. (Not that I could, miles away in Loess). That Aten had disappeared under the weight of responsibility had come as no surprise to me. If anything, there was a sense of satisfaction and perhaps a small dose of vindication.
Rumor has it that he is still missing, and while I do not wish ill on him, nor do I wish for his return.
The buckskin mare below me is noticeable mostly by her glow, visible from where I soar overhead. I land directly in front of her, a rather impressive feat, and one that had been honed for the better half of two decades. It effectively blocks any further ingress into Loess, and the flat expression on my face is a chilly accompaniment.
If Izora Lethia has come here looking for our friendship, she would find it buried beneath the Taigan soil, her knife in its back.
The peace that emanates from me and seeps into the land and residents I rule is heavy, but there is no sign that I feel its effects when I ask coldly:
“Can I help you, Matriarch?” I know of her ascension – and of Lilliana’s – and of my red son’s attempt to wrest control of the place from them. His methods were perhaps not the best, but such an admission will never be spoken aloud. There is weight to things said aloud, after all, and they grow heavier when they are repeated. Does Izora Lethia know that I am aware what she has said of me? That I and my family are fickle? That Elio would be unfit to rule if I were his only teacher? That my morals and ideals are not the sort a leader should have?
Well, she is a leader now, I reason. She will soon learn that morals are little more than a shield, and a shield that buckles easily under pressure. I have never claimed to have any, and it is clear from the stony set of my blue mouth that I do not intend to soften.
The navy pointed mare lands quickly and sure footed in front of her, her features hard and stoney. Lethy takes a gentle step backwards dipping her head slightly in acknowledgement. Her curious, purple eyes scan Lepis taking in her posture and her cold welcoming. She can hear it in the way she addresses her.
It takes all Lethy has not to pull her lips into a thin line across her face and tell Lepis that she simply came to see if she was doing well and now that she had she would be on her way. It is not forgotten to her what she had said to Elio about his family and specifically his mother. Though there was much more she wished she could have said to him about his mothers once compassionate manner, she would not apologize for saying what she did. From the icy stare that she throws her way now Lethy could only assume that someone had told her.
Okay, we are probably not friends anymore.
" @[Lepis] , I am glad to see you are doing well." her voice was not as soft as it typically was, maybe the awkwardness of the situation had crept in. She pulls her peace softly around her as she examined the landscape around her, she can feel a familiar pulse of peace radiate from it's being. A new gift of Lepis'? Why deprive herself from it?
"You look at home here." she says with a small smile, the peace she offered herself leaking into her muscles, and her mind. Lepis could glare at her all she wanted, it would not deter her.I feel that you've got a new gift since moving back." her voice returned to its soft candace.
She could not decide if small talk was the best in this moment but from the look Lepis is flashing her she supposed not
Business it is then, if in fact she would help her.
With a soft intake and release of breath and a shift of her posture her amethyst eyes locked with Lepis' icy ones. "I came to seek you out. Much has changed since we first met. You were honest and compassionate when I knew nothing of this land. We've both grown since then, gone different directions, collided and disagreed. I was simple, but you were majestic. All you have tried to accomplish was done in your opinion for the good of Beqanna. Do you regret the powers you've acquired? Has it all gone the way you expected? when she is done she shifts again, not certain if what she wanted to say came out right. Her purpose was not to offend, but to learn - though neither of those seemed certain under the current circumstances.
A winter wind bushes against my side, slipping up beneath my feathered wings. I shiver, but it is disguised as a shifting of my weight, a resettling that makes it clear I’ve no intention of moving from where I block Izora Lethia’s progress into Loess.
She understands this too, or at least takes a step backward, nodding her head in acknowledgement. My blue-grey eyes narrow for the moment my visitor looks away, taking her in. Aten is gone, I know, yet there is a telling swell to the buckskin’s belly, one I have worn myself many times. Another suitor then, I think, and that at least I approve of. I hope that this one is more capable than her last, or at least capable of giving her satisfactory children.
I respond to her attempts at small talk with the same stony expression as before. Only when she begins ‘I came to seek you out’, do I suspect she is getting to the meat of her visit. I am doubtful it will be political; the North seems content under its current leadership. They have not grown wiser since my departure, it would seem.
She is here for something else then, though what I am not certain. The use of past tense with the descriptors she has chosen – honest and compassionate – does not go unnoticed. I have been called worse things than this though, and though I am often quick to take offense, it is not from paltry barbs such as these. At least not when they are followed by majestic and a series of questions that seem far too probing to have come from Izora Lethia herself.
“You went to the Mountain, didn’t you?” The words I speak sound like a question, but I do not need to hear her reply to know the answer. “Aten came to Wolfbane and I after he’d gone,” I tell her, “Asking the same sort of probing questions. Some task the fairies had sent him on, and I suppose we’d answered well enough, as he grew more and more like Castile afterward.” Perhaps that is what drove them away, I think, that implacable nature of a dragon.
What has the pretty mare in front of me asked for, I wonder?
It is something I would have asked her, back in the times that we were friends. Instead, I only answer her soft mention of a new gift with: “A magician gave me peace. The ability to manipulate it, I mean.” I look away from my former friend, to where the sun is slowly inching toward the western horizon and turning the sky around us to the same reddish orange of the hills surrounding us. “We’ve not had anyone taken from Loess since.” The north is not faring so well, I know. Has Lethy’s co-leader returned from her captivity, I wonder, and had the child she’d been carrying survived?
The path my following thoughts take is uncomfortably aligned with the questions that the other woman asks.
“I do not regret what I acquired. These new powers have been immensely helpful in keeping all the lands that I rule safe. Not that I couldn’t have done so before, but…you know.” She shrugs her shoulders, casually. They were useful enough, my shrug says, an advantage. “I never turn down help from the Fairies.”
Izora Lethia asks if it has all gone the way she expected, and Lepis exhales in a startled chuff. It turns into a wry laugh as soon as it meets the winter air, a puff of steam that fogs the air between them before being pulled away by the stiff wind. It will only grow colder, I know, temperature dropping as the sun falls away.
“Nothing ever goes the way it is expected to,” I tell her. I know that she asks about my power only, and I can admire her determination. Her reminder of the past had touched a part of me I have longed walled away, and I react predictably. “There have been deals made with devils and genies to keep this place safe, Lethy, in addition to that magic.” My words are short and clipped, but not unkind. “Perhaps other lands, and other families have been sacrificed to make it so.” I shrug, my mouth drawn back to a thin line, accompanied by a sense of inevitability in my words. I had seen Neverwhere’s scars and the iridescence of her son. Heard Celina’s casual mentions of her father. Listened to tales of the Lilliana and her many children. “But they had their chance and they squandered it. The blame for that is not mine.”
I fall quiet just as the mournful howls of the coyotes start. They will trail off soon, I know, and look back to meet Izora Lethia’s eyes directly.
“With power comes difficult decisions, the addition of so many grey areas in a world that to others seems purely black and white. But if you are certain of what you mean to achieve, there is no need for fear of corruption. You have a good heart. You need not fear that kind of danger.” Not when there are so many others. I am not normally this verbose, and am never so with strangers. The amount of information I have given her is indicative – but of what I am not yet certain. My eyes drift once more to her belly, an unspoken question, but I am not rude enough to ask directly.
She can feel it floating on the tension that they are no longer friends, but Lethy can not help but drift to those days when conversation came so fluidly and honest between them.
She does not let it go unnoticed that she appreciates the mares willingness to answer her question, her effortless smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. She does not flinch away under the pressing eyes or words of her companion - does not respond to her question of going to the mountain, though how ironic that Aten had sought the same mare for his quest.
Though Lethy could have guessed what Lepis' initial answer was as to whether she regretted her gifts, it is when she begins to self reflect that she finds herself pulled into the mares words. She nods in understanding, with each passing day since Aten's and Kalil's disappearance that grey area was expanding for her.
It is when Lepis says that Lethy has a good heart she diverts her eyes towards the sound of those receding coyotes, hiding the surprise that bubbles to the surface. Maybe not all hope was lost between the two, but that was something that would need to be visited at another time.
With a small sigh and a genuine smile she returns her amethyst eyes to Lepis, her wandering eyes catching her notice. Thank you, Lepis. It is starting to get late. I should be getting back. with a nod she turns to go stopping to turn back towards the pegasus, and Lepis.. I'm glad to see you doing so well. You're still as magnificent as the first day I saw you. with that she turned towards home, Lepis' words playing over and over in her mind.
