"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
He takes her snippiness with grace and she gives him a tight smile in response as he speaks. “I have no desire to be collected and kept.” Is her first response, the gilded edges of her iris’s narrowing at him. No, she would not collect dust on a shelf only to be taken out to play the common broodmare. She had been raised for better things than that and deserved much more than a herd could ever give her.
This kingdom however… “Tell me more of Mazikeen and this lake.” Her voice a soft murmur as she ponders him and the tidbit he dangled before her like a tasty carrot. She refused to show her ignorance on just how wildly uninformed she was. She knew the jungle was gone, knew the world had become different since she had last drawn breath here. But that’s about as far as she knows, the names of new lands and kingdoms as lost to her as their current rulers.
He speaks again of solitude and she gives a slight shake of her head, sending luxuriant raven curls into unruliness. “That’s the exact opposite of what I seek.” A teasing smile on her gray lips and a pointed expression playing across her delicate features.
They may call me a sinner, but I am at peace with myself;
Bardot