[private] what to do next

[Straia]

is this the end of everything?

STRAIA

or is it just a new way to bleed?

She is not particularly interested in Ghaul. Well no, that is not quite true. She is interested in him, for he is the sort she seeks, though her mind flits to Castile anyway. So close, and yet...not quite enough when it came down to it. Isn’t the usually the issue with men?

For now though, it is Sochi that captures Straia’s attention, as is befitting the victor of Straia’s little trial. Hell hath no fury like a woman, after all (scorned or not is irrelevant). Sochi’s dream for Beqanna interested Straia though, something different. Different even then the chaos and power Straia had once sought, given that Straia had sought it in the name of a land. The goal had never been to put her own name on the map, but the Chamber’s. A name that had once been great and feared and had been left to fester and rot.

Funny, how easily everything can be erased. Yet they persist anyway.

Straia finds Sochi when she is alone and hopefully a bit more settled into this new home of hers. It is, technically, Straia’s home now too, but she is something a bit too other to truly call anyplace home now. Besides, her heart would always belong to the Chamber. As has become her habit, Straia simply appears without fanfare (if you ignore the part where she simply appears from thin air, of course). ”You won,” she says with a grin that almost looks like a compliment. ”So tell me, what is it you plan to do next?”

@[sochi]

[sochi]

SOCHI

The Cove is comfortable enough, although Sochi struggles to label it as a home.

It is something differently entirely.

It is a starting place, a resting place. It is the place where she gathers people to her—albeit slowly. She is in no rush to do this quickly when she would rather do it right. She is in no rush to find those who are only marginally suited for their goal. She would rather wait. Would rather be sure they are the right fit.

She walks the border today as a tiger, padding along the newly discovered paths, her tail flicking slowly behind her. Sochi pauses as the air ripples around her and then splits with Straia walking through the invisible curtains. She shifts then, shivering slightly as the thick fur leaves her and she stands as she was born, her coat sleek and her matted mane falling heavily down her curved neck.

“I did,” she purrs in her throaty voice, silvery eyes studying the mare more closely. It is difficult to imagine what she must have been before she became…this. What she would have been like in her prior life, when the world spilled blood at her feet. Did she have that same sharp-eyed look that she has now?

“I am slowly gathering shifters. A pack is no pack if there are not bodies to inhabit it.”

She has Risk and their children, Daye, and Mazikeen.

There are others, she knows, but not all have made their way to the Cove.

She supposes she could feel ashamed that she is not further along in her plan, but she very rarely feels anything like that. Rarely feels anything that cuts through her arrogant outer shield.

So instead she lifts her chin slightly, looking at Straia.

“And you? What is your plan?”

she said a war ain't a war before both sides bleed

[Straia]

is this the end of everything?

STRAIA

or is it just a new way to bleed?

Straia has always believed in waiting for the opportune moment. Plans that are made in haste or executed in a rush do not succeed. She should know. She spent a lifetime working on one plan, and one plan only. It had worked, at the time. There was nothing she could do about the destruction of Beqanna and it’s remaking; she could not have stopped such a thing, and as such, perhaps in some way her plans had been for naught. Yet wasn’t that always the case? Time progressed, and things were lost to it.

Sochi shifts back into her horse form as Straia appears, entirely unruffled (or at the very least, appearing unruffled) at Straia’s sudden appearance. A thing Straia likes about this particular mare. She can tell she is being studied, though she doesn't mind. She is a thing worth studying, probably. Though she had been like them, once. Just a child, with squirrels for friends, with lofty goals and dreams. She’d loved, she’d had children, she’d created her own legacy. Though in so many ways, she had also always been as she is now.

Straia only nods as Sochi elaborates. Slow progress, but not a thing that Straia is judging. ”I am at your service, if there is a way for me to help. Besides the tree, I mean.” Her lips curve into something of a grin, sly and conniving.

Though at the question from Sochia, Straia raises a brow slightly. ”I am not entirely sure I am allowed to have my own plans. Power comes with strings, though I do not yet know the limits of those strings.” She rolls a shoulder slightly, letting little tendrils of magic snake of her, a visual representation of it. They look a bit like broken puppet strings, for Straia has never been a good puppet. ”All I know is I miss the Chamber. I am not sure there is a way to bring it back...but perhaps I can find one or something like it.”

@[sochi]

[sochi]

SOCHI

Sochi has a hard time imagining Straia being at the service of anyone, of any thing. She is sure that there have been those that the other mare served, but she can only think that it was to serve her own end purpose. There must not have been much to bring the painted mare to her knees. She can respect that—in many ways, can understand it as something in her own life as well—and she settles into the easy conversation. There’s something of her that’s always on edge, as if just waiting for that moment of the attack, but she relaxes as best she can, only one ear tilted, listening for anything that may feel off.

“Don’t worry, I will absolutely let you know if and when I need your help.” A shadow of a smile plays around the edges of her mouth, the only true hint of warmth that Sochi ever gave. “The tree is helpful though.” For others, at least. Sochi herself had not yet taken a visit to it to take any gifts from it. Perhaps strange considering that she was the one who had initially won it, but she was not so thirsty for additional power just yet. She was quite content with just her ability to shift and her other more natural gifts.

Her attention draws back to the mare though, watching as the magical strings fall off of her.

“I cannot imagine you would do well with strings of any kind,” she muses, watching as they dance in the air, broken and cut clean. “I would say that I am at your service, should you choose to risk the strings, but I find that I do not serve well anymore.” She tilts her head to the side, that same shadow of a smile tilting her lips, knowing that Straia did not serve well either. “What was the Chamber like? I fought a panther from there once.” She had only learned of Atrox after the Tephran war, when he nearly ripped her chest in half. She glances down, knowing it was only her gift of healing that left her without mark.

she said a war ain't a war before both sides bleed

[Straia]

is this the end of everything?

STRAIA

or is it just a new way to bleed?

It is true that she has never really served anyone but herself. She has served, yes, as all must at some point in life. But there was always an end in mind, her own purpose to the service. It is no different now. She offers service to the one she chose, the one she believed most likely to use the power Straia now wielded according to it’s worth.

Straia chuckles at the mention of the tree. ”The tree is a parlor trick,” she says with a dismissive tone. Though the tree was very much her soul manifested into reality, it was nothing compared to what she could do. The only benefit of the tree is the magic it gave to others was not truly tied to her in that it did not tire her and would never be dependent on her. It would live even if she chose not to again. ”I am capable of much greater things than the small gifts of the tree. Though magic is not truly what makes us capable.” There is something knowing in her voice. Sochi had not sought the tree. Once, Straia had been traitless, born plain and simple as many were at the time. It had not stopped her then.

”Indeed, I have never liked strings. But we are all limited, in some way or another. It is a matter of being clever…” She trails off, a wicked little grin on her face. ”We are not women meant to bend the knee, but that does not mean we cannot serve one another all the same.” Exactly how, she was not sure, though perhaps there would be a way for them to have what they sought and help each other to achieve it.

Sochi asks about the Chamber, and Straia smiles, nostalgic and perhaps a bit more horse-like than her other gestures. There’s almost a hint of the girl she once was, long ago, in that smile. Around them, she paints the Chamber. The misty pine forest of her home springs to life around them. A few squirrels chitter in the branches overhead. Atrox’s heart beats a steady rhythm beneath their feet. In the distance, the pine tree still burns, for it had been a part of the Chamber. It was the piece she’d brought back with her now.

”My father, king before I took his crown, let the Chamber fester and rot. I built it back, bringing life to the forests and fear to the lips of those who spoke its name.” She paints the picture as she talks, bringing to life the Beqanna of old, a place that still deserved to live far more than whatever it had become in more recent years. ”All good things must end, though. I stepped down when I had done what I set out to accomplish, and let myself disappear from memory. The Chamber too, I suppose, has been forgotten by most. Though the heart you feel beneath our feet belonged to that panther you once fought. The Beqanna of old was a beautiful, magical place. It was not as it is now. Such a dead land now.” She trails off, the illusion of her old home fading and leaving them back in the Cove. What a shame, what Beqanna has become.

@[Sochi]