you've been talking with your fists | oceane

[Oceane]

a little white light in a
sea gone black

≋

Gale's age and the experiences he has lived have certainly earned him recognition of his maturity - his age, even, is likely closer to Oceane's than to that of foalhood, but in the context of mother and child it feels almost unnatural for the Loessian Queen to consider him an adult. Furthermore, in the context of the warm reunion he had never been able to share with his mother, now would never be able to share with his mother, Oceane can only look upon the cerulean man with the sadness a surrogate mother may look upon a heartbroken child.

“O-of course,” she mutters as her amber eyes watch his before moving to the playful curve of his lips that accompanies his jest. How she will hate to rend that from him, how she now dreads it, despite knowing that she must tell him.

That burden, now, is hers.

“Gale, I...” Oceane falters, the tightness of her throat hampering her ability to simply spill the news from her quivering jaw. She inhales slowly and deeply, clears her throat, and shifts her weight and wings, but then she finds no other way to delay the inevitable and returns her heartbroken gaze to her very first Beqannan acquaintance. “Lepis passed away, Gale. In the fire.”

Her voice cracks and for the first time since she had found the remnants of Lepis' charred wing, she allows herself to cry. In front of Soran and Altum, even, she had forced stoicism, but that facade feels more tiring and futile than anything else in this moment.

“She was trying to protect Loess, as she always did.”

@[Gale]
“”

n | r