i feel a bad moon rising | khalta

[Lepis]

staring at the ceiling in the dark same old empty feeling in your heart The boy introduces himself, but the name he gives is unfamiliar. No Loessian mare had birthed a child with that name this season, she thinks to herself. His explanation – that he got lost, and lost, and lost again – makes sense, though she does wonder exactly how far so young a colt might have wandered on his own. Is there someone out in the darkness searching for him, she wonders? Or a dam that will wake and find him missing from her side come dawn? Having raised an exploratory brood herself, Lepis knows better than to begin with the questions that she truly thinks the most important. Instead, she just smiles, telling him her own name, and then waiting as he speaks again. “A spy,” she muses aloud, the ponderance in her voice exaggerated for the boy’s benefit. “Well, if you were a spy, I should probably not tell you about the hot springs, which we Loessians often seek out on cold winter nights like this one.” A gust of wind seems to emphasize this, swirling around the two of them. Snow, picked up by the gust, glitters in the moonlight. “And if you were a spy, I shouldn’t tell you about the fresh greens that grow there, which we usually only share with diplomats.” The dun mare sounds regretful, as if it is shame she cannot provide the bounty of which she speaks to this very well disguised spy. “But if you were a diplomat, or maybe just someone here to visit Loess, I could probably show you.” The mare nods, as if deciding this for certain, and then glances back down at the spotted colt inquisitively. “So which are you?” She asks him. “Are you an undercover spy?” @[Khalta] LEPIS staring at the bottom of your glass-- hoping one day you’ll make a dream last but dreams come slow and they go so fast