09-02-2020, 09:49 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-03-2020, 12:35 PM by Neverwhere.)
She's unclear, exactly, on what Lilliana thinks she can do. The story woven together makes her suspect nothing at all, but loyalty drives her forward, drives her South without telling anyone where she is going, or why. Brennen's magic fizzles over her skin when she leaves Nerine, but he will not know where she is going, only that she has gone, and his job is to protect Nerine, not her.
Neverwhere travels south, a path she has not taken for nearly two years, south to Loess, where she is not wanted and has little desire to go on her own, but Lilli asked, and the tears in her eyes cracked her voice. Her family is breaking itself apart against the red sandstone, but why?
If the rest of the family is much like Lilli, they're probably all tearing their hearts out over Wolfbane, she thinks, a dark joke that makes her snort to herself into the dampening Taigan fog. There is nobody to hear her rough laugh - at least nobody that makes their presence known - and Neverwhere passes through the redwood kings untroubled. The redwoods give way to scrub pines, the scrub pines to saguaros and the odd-armed joshua trees - Loess.
Neverwhere pauses on the border, but not out of respect - she has never respected borders, not even when she became a queen and had her own to worry about - no, she pauses because something is wrong. The Loessian border radiates peace and contentment, it's Lepis' magic, making cow-eyed slaves of her people, but something has happened. Something is different. She can feel it in her chest, and it is obvious here at the very edge of the kingdom where between one step and the next an anger boils up in her belly and makes her lip curl into a snarl unbidden.
What is happening in Loess?
Lepis is furious, and Neverwhere likes to think she knows enough of the little dun mare that if she is letting that anger bleed into her people, it is because she is also in trouble. Undeterred, and with a promise weighing on her, the Nerinian crosses into that quagmire of discontent and rage, grinding her teeth against the tendrils that reach for her heart and seek to overwhelm. Her success is middling, at best. Her ears disappear beneath the cream-colored locks of her mane, and her cloudy eyes flicker like heat-lightning flashing in the sky. Neverhwere is not easily swayed, yet it seems reasonable that this turmoil is exactly the cause of the black stallion's death, of the way silver and copper and gold crash against one another in the sky and bleed down on those below like rain.
She closes her eyes and feels the way the bile rises in her throat when she turns.
Left.
Her eyes open and she cuts through a small grove of spined cactus, and as she weaves her way out of them again, voices catch her ears. Lepis. And...
Her ears are already pinned, they can go no flatter, but her face becomes a snarl. She knows that voice. She releases the iron grip of her senses that keep the last of Lepis' enchantment at bay - what need is there, her own hatred boils over without the magic aid. Teeth set hard together, she stamps her forelegs in the sandy earth, sidestepping infinitesimally closer to Lepis' place. It is not necessary, no one will think she would stand with Wolfbane.
His shape is disarming, fanged, winged, but simple, and she cannot help but thank the gods that Lilliana did not come, is not here to see this, and to hope. Her eyes skirt the canyon they have found themselves within, but no others have come - not yet - and they fall back onto Bane, and they seethe, and a thought finds root in that rich soil.
It could work. The bald-faced mare is not a match for Bane, she had always known that. It wasn't simply the grotesque shifting, it was the healing, it was the thing he rather accidentally passed on to their son, and the thing that had accidentally saved her when he left her for dead. Lepis will never kill him on her own if he heals himself as fast as she deals damage, she might as well beat herself against the walls, but there is something that the Nerinian can do about that. Her snarl become a sharp grin with edges like glass. She is not Lilliana. She has no place in her heart for forgiveness. Not today.
The air beside her shimmers like heat waves glimmering off the sunny rocks. His healing. Sweat darkens her neck, she is so unused to using this magic. Besides her, in the dirt, fanged and winged and striped, Wolfbane lies beside her. For a moment, the duplicate's expression is so like the one on the Cursed stallion's face, yet it fades so rapidly to match her own. It snarls and bares it's teeth while it lies in the sand, and she can only hope that she has captured his magic.
Only one way to tell. The strike of her hoof against its haunch is fierce and the blood wells red and bright - it almost looks real. Ah, but will it heal?
Neverwhere travels south, a path she has not taken for nearly two years, south to Loess, where she is not wanted and has little desire to go on her own, but Lilli asked, and the tears in her eyes cracked her voice. Her family is breaking itself apart against the red sandstone, but why?
If the rest of the family is much like Lilli, they're probably all tearing their hearts out over Wolfbane, she thinks, a dark joke that makes her snort to herself into the dampening Taigan fog. There is nobody to hear her rough laugh - at least nobody that makes their presence known - and Neverwhere passes through the redwood kings untroubled. The redwoods give way to scrub pines, the scrub pines to saguaros and the odd-armed joshua trees - Loess.
Neverwhere pauses on the border, but not out of respect - she has never respected borders, not even when she became a queen and had her own to worry about - no, she pauses because something is wrong. The Loessian border radiates peace and contentment, it's Lepis' magic, making cow-eyed slaves of her people, but something has happened. Something is different. She can feel it in her chest, and it is obvious here at the very edge of the kingdom where between one step and the next an anger boils up in her belly and makes her lip curl into a snarl unbidden.
What is happening in Loess?
Lepis is furious, and Neverwhere likes to think she knows enough of the little dun mare that if she is letting that anger bleed into her people, it is because she is also in trouble. Undeterred, and with a promise weighing on her, the Nerinian crosses into that quagmire of discontent and rage, grinding her teeth against the tendrils that reach for her heart and seek to overwhelm. Her success is middling, at best. Her ears disappear beneath the cream-colored locks of her mane, and her cloudy eyes flicker like heat-lightning flashing in the sky. Neverhwere is not easily swayed, yet it seems reasonable that this turmoil is exactly the cause of the black stallion's death, of the way silver and copper and gold crash against one another in the sky and bleed down on those below like rain.
She closes her eyes and feels the way the bile rises in her throat when she turns.
Left.
Her eyes open and she cuts through a small grove of spined cactus, and as she weaves her way out of them again, voices catch her ears. Lepis. And...
Her ears are already pinned, they can go no flatter, but her face becomes a snarl. She knows that voice. She releases the iron grip of her senses that keep the last of Lepis' enchantment at bay - what need is there, her own hatred boils over without the magic aid. Teeth set hard together, she stamps her forelegs in the sandy earth, sidestepping infinitesimally closer to Lepis' place. It is not necessary, no one will think she would stand with Wolfbane.
His shape is disarming, fanged, winged, but simple, and she cannot help but thank the gods that Lilliana did not come, is not here to see this, and to hope. Her eyes skirt the canyon they have found themselves within, but no others have come - not yet - and they fall back onto Bane, and they seethe, and a thought finds root in that rich soil.
It could work. The bald-faced mare is not a match for Bane, she had always known that. It wasn't simply the grotesque shifting, it was the healing, it was the thing he rather accidentally passed on to their son, and the thing that had accidentally saved her when he left her for dead. Lepis will never kill him on her own if he heals himself as fast as she deals damage, she might as well beat herself against the walls, but there is something that the Nerinian can do about that. Her snarl become a sharp grin with edges like glass. She is not Lilliana. She has no place in her heart for forgiveness. Not today.
The air beside her shimmers like heat waves glimmering off the sunny rocks. His healing. Sweat darkens her neck, she is so unused to using this magic. Besides her, in the dirt, fanged and winged and striped, Wolfbane lies beside her. For a moment, the duplicate's expression is so like the one on the Cursed stallion's face, yet it fades so rapidly to match her own. It snarls and bares it's teeth while it lies in the sand, and she can only hope that she has captured his magic.
Only one way to tell. The strike of her hoof against its haunch is fierce and the blood wells red and bright - it almost looks real. Ah, but will it heal?
@[Wolfbane] I'm leaving this up to you, Cal. If Nev is successful, Wolfbane will not be able to use his healing for as long as the duplicate exists. Or if you want her to accidentally steal something else entirely, I'm game!
