[private] society, you're a crazy breed; vastra

[Wishbone]

it's a mystery to me

we have a greed with which we have agreed. you think you have to want more than you need; until you have it all you won't be free. and when you think more than you want, your thoughts begin to bleed.

Although Sickle didn’t have any visible injuries, the blood staining her skin and the thought that she could have been hurt keep Wishbone awake at night. She can’t help wondering if there’s something more she can do, something beyond forming alliances, patrolling the borders until her feet hurt, and throwing herself in front of the twins to protect them whenever she can.

It comes to her one night while she is drifting to sleep. Her thoughts often twist to her own childhood as she nestles against Sickle and Malik, and on this night she is thinking about how spirited she had been as a child. She had been full of zeal and recklessness, and Scorch had tailored her lessons on fighting and diplomacy to fit that energy. Wishbone’s eyes flutter open just before sleep claims her, recognizing the similarities between her passion as a child and the twins’ passion now.

Early in the next morning, Wishbone is busy thinking about how she can teach the twins to use their magic to protect themselves. There will be a time where Sickle and Malik will leave Tephra and be independent; if she’s even half of a mother, she would teach her children how to fight. But they have skills that go beyond her comprehension, and Wishbone knows she needs to find someone who can teach them how to hone their shifting and use it in a fight.

Her mind roams through the Tephrans she knows, finally landing on a name that belongs to someone she still needs to meet. Svedka has talked about the shifting mare before, about her physical prowess as a fighter and her rougher nature. She thinks Vastra would be the perfect teacher for her children, perhaps someone that will toughen Sickle and Malik like Scorch had to Wishbone.

So she begins to search for the mare, knowing only her name. She begins by looking in the places she knows Svedka frequents, certain she will find Vastra by the end of the day.

credit to eliza of adoxography.

@Vastra

[Vastra]

Vastra is also checking out the places Svedka frequents, though with a different intent and she certainly would not admit that is what she’s doing if she were to be asked. She still keeps returning here to Tephra and it is with an unspoken agreement with her mind and heart that she does not think about it too much. She certainly does not have to, Svedka is back and their children are practically grown.

But this jungle has grown on her and so she keeps returning.

Her ears twitch with the sound of someone else approaching and she at least manages to stamp out most of her disappointment from displaying when it’s not who she was looking for. “Oh.” And then a little belatedly as she reminds herself to be polite, “Hello.” There is another pause as her storm-grey eyes take in this stranger that seems familiar, and then it clicks that while Vastra has not spoken to her before, she’s been told about this mare.

So she had not found Svedka but she had found his sister. That encourages her to not walk away immediately, at least, and to make some attempt at conversation. Vastra would be lying if she said she wasn’t curious about Svedka’s siblings.

That curiosity softens her normally gruff voice when she continues speaking. “You’re Wishbone, right? I’m Vastra.” She considers and then immediately dismisses the idea of trying to introduce herself as something like ‘Svedka’s friend’. He might be the reason she stays here but she doesn't enjoy the idea of defining herself exclusively by that relationship to anyone else.

VASTRA

@Wishbone