the rain that falls upon your skin
it's closer than my hands have been
It has taken courage for Lepis to reveal her indecision, to lay out the options she faces in front of Taiga’s protector and let him see them. Her husband’s words, echoing in her ears, had been encouragement to do so; a reminder that this world does not belong solely to her. (That it should, she would still argue, but it does not, at least not now, not yet.) So she had let Aten in, pulled him aside rather than letting him learn of the change in a territory meeting, opened herself to the idea that he might make her choice easier. She had let herself think perhaps these three years when she’d done exactly what she’d promised (helped Taiga grow, built friendships with other lands, encouraged peace between them) would have some meaning. The Comtesse has lowered her internal defenses to share this – what she sees as weakness – with Aten.
And he throws it in her face.
He tells her that she will not defy Castile, and that he does not care to hear her story. (A brief memory, him asking about her history less than a year ago, of sharing with him what she has only ever told her husband, flits across her mind. Hypocrite – she thinks. Aten had asked because it had been self-serving, or perhaps because he’d wanted to know their weaknesses, and she had been fool enough to show him.)
That is not all he has to say, it seems. Not by a long shot. He speaks of horses making threats (had he learned of her conversation with Heartfire then, of when his beloved queen had threatened Lepis? That is the only threat she’s heard). There is no time to respond to everything he says; there is simply too much. Once again, he accuses her of taking away his ability to protect Taiga. Are they not living in the same Taiga, she wonders? This place is exactly as it had been under his rule – only it is larger. It is better, it is more well-connected, it is stronger. He is concerned about the Icicle Isle and Nerine, as though the two lands will spontaneously collapse with a change in allegiance.
Heartfire has been here, Aten tells her, undermining Lepis’ power. That such a meeting had happened does not surprise the dun mare; she’d have been more alarmed had the Nerinian not found a way to go behind her back. Aten continues to insult Castile, Lepis’ decisions, even Pteron. Has he forgotten every conversation they had had, Lepis suddenly wonders, or just the ones with facts that are inconvenient for his position in this argument? Lepis herself has told him of her own reluctance to place a child as a leader. (That Pteron is 6 now, and most certainly an adult by any reasonable measurement is something Lepis ignores for his relation to her, and Aten for its clash with his argument).
Then his tone grows calmer. A cease fire, he thinks, as though it has not been his continuous and uninterrupted assault on a woman who offered no defense.
Lepis had never thought he might leave the Taiga, and what he means to assure her by repeating this escapes her. They had known he would stay, that he would protect Taiga with his last breath. Does he truly think she would have given him the title of Protector – let alone of her Champion? – if she had even the slightest doubt in his pledge to keep his home safe? Lepis has given him exactly what he keeps telling her she has taken from him, and yet he still accuses her of putting Taiga in danger.
‘Until I see you grow a backbone again’, he says, and Lepis releases the breath she had not known she was holding. During his tirade – for that is sure what it had been – she has been quiet. Quiet and still, with no expression on her face save quiet attention. Aten throws accusations, insults, baseless lies, and false assumption, and Lepis lets him do so without interruption. Only after he has finished speaking, ending with what he might think is a noble claim, does she finally respond.
“Where is this looming danger?” She asks him, her voice cool, steeled, the question rhetorical. The vice grip she has on her emotions makes it so, but there is enough to color her expression, to flash in her blue grey eyes as she speaks again. “The only threat Taiga faces is Heartfire. She has promised destruction, and I have kept Taiga from it. I have done exactly as I promised when I came to Taiga in spite of your efforts to derail that -” His backchannel conversation with Heartfire, the relationship with Island Resort that she had to mend herself, “- and yet nothing is good enough for you. Taiga is larger and stronger than it has been since its rebirth, and yet you wish me to act as though I fear a danger that only exists in your mind.”
She scoffs; she cannot help herself, and takes a step back.
“Castile said you could not be trusted,” Lepis tells Aten, and she reigns in her emotion once more. “But I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.” That’s why she’d sought him out today, to ask him one final time for his loyalties. Does he really think that she’d have even mentioned disobeying her King if it was not something she was truly considering? And to Aten, whom she is now even less sure will not use this against her? If he’d just answered: Castile’s Taiga, everything would have been simpler. She could have done as her King commanded, appointed Pteron leader…and also Aten. Two rulers, one with experience and one with ties to the forest deeper even than the roots of its trees. She could have made her own choice, rather than be backed into a corner without one.
Lepis sighs, and while there had been a rapid flurry of emotions during this conversation, the one that emanates from her blue-grey eyes now at the end is disappointment.
She has taken the path that Wolfbane wanted, and like every part of her life that the striped stallion has touched: this too has crumbled.
“That was my mistake.” She finally says, the rare admission spoken as she turns to go. There are other things to be done now, other preparation to make.
@[Aten]
lepis, comtesse of taiga
queen of loess | queen of sylva | queen of the south
lover of wolfbane | mother of pteron, marni, tiercal, eyas, gale, celina, and elio
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