[open] a new king will rise from the ashes; everyone

[sochi]

Sochi

darling, you're wild-eyed, empty, and tongue-tied
maybe you need me or maybe you don't

They quarrel and choose sides and fight amongst one another and it becomes dreadfully boring to her. A headache begins to brew behind her eyes, a sharp aching need to just put an end to it all. Just one pounce and she could at least break through the tension and the words into something real. One pierced jugular beneath her jaws and they could settle this like true predators, letting leadership rise and fall.

In truth, she doesn’t understand their need for diplomacy.

Their desire to be led by one among them—someone they trust.

Did they not want the strongest to lead them? Did they not want the fiercest?

She feels herself growing irritable and edgy, frustrated so that she can only acknowledge her daughter with a sweep of velvet lip over her head before turning her attention back to the mess before her.

Castile remains set on diplomacy—reigning the beast within—and she admires him for his restraint even as she desperately wishes he would let loose. Still, she has had enough and she turns her attention to the naysayers. “A challenge was made for the mantle of leadership and a leader has emerged.” She jerks her head toward the angelic stallion, having no true knowledge of him or his personality or accomplishments.

She does not care.

“Even the previous leader has accepted this. Would you not want the strongest to lead and protect?”

Every inch of her is a predator. She has been stripped of the finer delicacies of her mother’s teachings. She has shed her kinder, softer curves. Over the years, throughout the trials, she has been boiled down into this kernel of truth, of justice, of feral knowledge. She can only meet them on this one ground of it.

For a second, her impassive, silver gaze moves over them.

In her mind, should they so desire the crown, they should battle for it—fight for it, bleed for it. Should one of them be able to best Castile—although she doubts it, arrogant in her belief in his brawn and his worth as a leader—then the title should be handed over. It was the law of nature. The law as old as time: the strongest thrive. But something tells her that they would rather just talk about it longer and so she just shifts in her spot, a wave of striped tiger fur rippling through her body before settling back into obsidian. 

Not now. For now, she would wait. For now.

playing the slow rooms, howling at half moons
if you are a Queen then, honey, I am a wolf