Kensa
Leaving Hyaline is a trauma Kensa is entirely unprepared for. She acts quickly when directed by her Queens to help remove everyone toward the coast, keeping her head and perhaps being a harder version of herself as they push quickly out of their mountains--she may once even snap at a reluctant youngster--suddenly feeling very far from the “young horse” who had played on the beach last summer. She looks anxiously for Litotes during the flurry but does not see him and this adds to her distress but she forces herself to serve Hyaline first. When they pass into Silver Cove her dusty face shows the tracks of tears.
She is angry and afraid--and these are two emotions toward which she rarely strays--but she bares up and listens carefully to all Kagerus and Solace tell them. Her thoughts go to all her friends in Beqanna. Rhaegor is out there somewhere, and once again she wishes for wings like the ones his mother gave him so that she too could fly up above the world and see how things lay, see that he is safe. She knows the two painted mares must be worried doubly.
A plague could decimate their population, and it seems that the only appropriate course is to abandon Hyaline. The thought fractures her heart. She presses forward, her face a mystery of conflicting emotion. “Kagerus, Solace. I cannot imagine leaving Hyaline behind… but if we maintain a presence there whoever lingers is likely to contract this illness are they not? I can’t in good conscience expect you or anyone else to hold our claim their and risk themselves.” She looks among her rulers and her friends, people who cared for her and people who thought she was just in the mountains for the good looking boys. Hyaline is her home. She isn’t finished. “But to surrender our sovereignty and be absorbed by a kingdom that may only welcome us out of obligation…” A pause. Her ears pin in frustration. “ I am young, and I hoped to serve Hyaline as a diplomat. I don’t know anything about conflict or protecting our borders, I admit this freely. Others may think we cannot straddle this border and still keep our people safe. But if we disappear into Tephra, if we surrender just because we will be safer there then this Sanctuary will be gone. We may never be called home. Someone else will take our mountains, swim in our cold blue lake, graze upon our sweet highland pastures one day. You are right when you say that the land is not who we are, but it is a part of us.” Her passion perhaps falls on deaf ears, and her topaz eyes flash to her compatriots but she does not falter under any disapproving look she may receive.
“After almost a year Hyaline is in my blood and I wont leave her forever. I cannot. I will stand between these borders with you Kagerus. Whatever may befall me. I will serve The Sanctuary. I will serve Hyaline.” She is stubborn and sure, anger and fear having grown into a strength of will she was unaware she possessed.
i'm burning like a fire gone wild on saturday
guess i won't be coming to church on sunday
i'll be waiting for love to come around
