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  • Beqanna

    COTY

    Assailant -- Year 226

    QOTY

    "But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura


    if looks could kill i'd be an uzi - ruan
    #1
    Small and quick, the grullo mare slips between the tree trunks. The bright fiery canopy of Sylva is punctuated here and there with a sharp conifer. The green against autumnal finery is eye-catching, and a physical marker that she is nearing the no man's land between the sylva and the taiga.

    It is a place for no one, a thin stretch of land occupied by nothing more than deer. The trees around her become more and more varied, and when she is in a part of the forest where the deciduous trees perfectly equal the coniferous, she stops. She's there alone for a while, invisible to any other living (conscious) thing. With the bowery overhead it is impossible to tell how much time has passed.

    Maybe it's minutes; perhaps it's hours.

    Eventually she is not alone, because a spotted stallion comes along. Djinni looks up at Ruan with a soft smile.

    "Fancy seeing you here," She says. It's too early for a hunt, she thinks, dusk has only begun to darken the sky. She has smelled the wolves of the taiga before, had smelled them on him at their first meeting. She has pegged him as a shifter, and doesn't notice the scent is softer today.
    D J I N N I
    genie | rose gold tobiano dun | trickster
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    #2
    Without the wolf's eyesight in the dark, he often had to make his patrols earlier in the evening now. Well, throughout the day, really. But regardless, night was no longer his prime time for anything save for getting lost in thoughts darker than the twilight.

    It would be a lie to think he didn't miss the ability to take on that form of his heart, adopted by a pack of wolves so very long ago and lodged in his strange mannerisms now. The beast in his mind was still there... though there were times he doubted it's shape, maybe even it's intentions. Left behind and trapped like a shadow of corrupted magic.

    Its silvery eyes looked up, and his followed.
    "Fancy seeing you here," she greeted with a soft smile.

    He stopped, blue eyes boring into her as he tested the air for her scent. Ah, yes. The one from the other forest, with the questions. The air around him grew colder, as it always did, and he swept his lips in a half-smile of greeting. "Djinni," her name plucked from memory, easy enough to do when you don't know many people. "How are you? How is your Sylva?"

    He shifted to face her more squarely, solid and steady as always. He didn't bother trying to smother his Winter, it didn't seem to matter of late. As though his grief and silent suffering took too much from him to have the strength to hold the chill inside him anymore.

    It didn't cause too much of an issue as it was, only making the air around him colder and his breath to fog for a bare moment. It probably made his skin burn with frost, but he wouldn't know for sure; hadn't touched anyone but his fiery daughter in the passed few months and her heat naturally negated the chill.



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    #3
    djinni

    He does not seem the kind to smile easily, and Djinni is not off put by his cool demeanor. If anything, she is intrigued by the way the cold spirals off his skin like steam off a sulfuric lake. He is cold like Brennen is sometimes cold, and she wonders if the two dark-haired men have ever had a chance to meet. Perhaps they will someday, she thinks; it will be more probably than not if she succeeds today.

    “Sylva is well,” she tells him truthfully, her gaze flicking to the melding of her fiery canopy and his firs overhead. It is quiet, as it always is, and that is what has brought her here. The grey mare lacks the drive of her own monarch, but she is equally (and perhaps even more) cunning. More importantly, she has begun to realize the importance of a homeland. She had mocked the amazons for it only a few years ago, and now she thinks of the fire forest even when dozens of miles away. The Sylva forest has cemented a place in Djinni’s heart, and now she wants to be sure that it will be cemented in Beqanna.

    Whole lands had been stripped away in the Reckoning, and she is not ready to let that happen again. If she has to take measures (take responsibility) that she’d usually avoid…then so be it. She will take the measures.

    “I came for both of our woods,” she tells the spotted stallion, “To see if you would want to join me in making sure they stay safe.”

    all my fragile strength is gone
    D J I N N I
    genie | rose gold tobiano dun | trickster
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    #4

    ”Sylva is well,” she said, her eyes lifting to the canopies above them where the species of their different forests met with grasping branches in a timeless embrace. He stepped closer as he followed her gaze up, tracing the jagged lines and edges of a mingling blend of nature as he shifted to stand at her side -far enough to keep the chill of his winter's touch safely away.

    It was a companionable quiet that settled over him as he waited for her to continue, sensing there was more to her visit than a neighborly hello. He didn’t have long to wait.

    ”I came for both of our woods. To see if you would want to join me in making sure they stay safe.”

    A hard knot formed in the barrel of his chest, tangled with wariness and an unease he couldn’t put a name to. Being from a pack, and now leading his own in a way, he well knew the advantages of numbers. Safety was easier, yes. But it mattered who those numbers were, or safety could become war in little more than a flash of heated tempers.

    He knew, too, the disadvantages. The more mouths to feed, the frenzy to fight for scraps. The vicious scuffles to earn their way up the ranks that he purposefully didn’t keep in the Taiga. And worse, the manipulations to do so among people rather than honest beasts. Numbers and safety were well and good, if it were a stable unit, a trusted core and balanced minds.

    ”What do you propose?” he asked, turning cool, glacial eyes to her in a curious state of caution.



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    #5
    djinni

    Diplomacy has never been something she is interested in, but she’s always been good at it. Mastery of the political was one of the tools considered indispensible by the monarchies of old; a silver tongue, a warrior’s skill, geographic knowledge, and a complete historical understanding of Beqanna since its inception – that was what she knew. Or had known, really, since Djinni has not brushed up on history in decades and the Beqanna she stands on is far different than the ones of her youth.

    She has never really understood the importance of those skills before (most likely because she has never understood the appeal of a kingdom life) but as she stands beside the spotted stallion, she beings to understand.

    Or at least, she thinks she does.

    “A union,” she replies.

    “Not an alliance – something more.” The phrasing is more difficult than she’d anticipated, but there is no need to amplify the candor in her eyes. She is honest and forthright, and has to trust that he will take her at her word. “Our woods are already connected,” says the grullo mare as she gestures overhead at the blended canopy. “I propose a single kingdom, with both Sylva and the Taiga continuing just as they have until now. But we will count our people as one in times of need, and consider each other equals.”

    Djinni is fairly certain that such a thing hasn’t been proposed before, not here in the New Beqanna or before the Reckoning in the Old. Alliances are standard, subkingdoms not unheard of – but merging two lands into one? They will be geographically larger than the rest, expanding the territory of his pack to roam (if they so choose) without also hindering the freedom of her own people. It seems ideal – at least to Djinni – but she knows that the decision is equally Ruan’s, and so she waits.

    all my fragile strength is gone
    D J I N N I
    genie | rose gold tobiano dun | trickster
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    #6
    "A union. Not an alliance -something more."

    He watched her closely, noting the vibrant light in her eyes of what he thought might be honesty, the easy way she stood comfortably, her fluid movement as she gestured to their blended trees overhead. Everything seemed at ease between them, practically strangers as they were. It was hard for him to trust others lately, with everything that had happened so recently, strong bonds suddenly and surprisingly broken. But he thought with time, he might come to trust her. Perhaps. He knew her far better than any other ruler, something he should remedy soon. Still, it wasn't familiar enough that he felt comfortable joining with her territory and her people in such an intimate way before knowing them better.

    Not an alliance, but something more.
    A single kingdom.

    "But we will count our people as one in times of need, and consider each other equals."

    He smiled wryly, mildly amused. "We are already equals, are we not?" he questioned pointedly, remembering the first and last time they'd met where she had not been so forthcoming with her status as a leader. But surely she must be, to be proposing such a serious change to two kingdoms.

    "Perhaps we would still count ourselves as one in times of need," he gave with a noncommittal shrug. Possible alliance? "The Taiga and its people have been through great change in a short time, and I'm not prepared to press more on us so soon. Most especially, not without more knowledge. I haven't been around to the other kingdoms since rising as leader here, and haven't yet established where they stand and who they are." Where you stand, who you are. Yes, he would definitely need to remedy that very soon. He had trusted his wife -ex-wife- to manage all political dealings, her having the most experience between them, but he needed to step up and take care of it for himself now. He had neglected that far longer than he'd meant to in his time of mourning.

    Well passed time to buck up, get over it, and take care of these things.

    "Is this an offer to visit, then? To learn more about you and your people?" He paused, quietly pensive for a few moments. Then asked carefully, deliberately, "Where would you suggest to begin when meeting other territories?"
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    #7
    djinni

    He asks if they aren’t already equals and she grins in return. She knows she’d not been entire open about her identity on her first trip here, but she also hadn’t ever lied – or even hidden the truth. She comfortable with that (she’d have been equally comfortable even if she had twisted the truth), and doesn’t seem at all put off by what she interprets as his reluctance to wholeheartedly accept her proposal.

    Well, she supposes, getting rid of responsibility seems to be more difficult than she’d anticipated.

    Still, this could all be good for Sylva, and watching over the forest had been what she’d promised to do. So rather than disappear into the mountains as she frequently contemplates, she stays. Ruan speaks of great change in Taiga, but murmurs of what that change might be has not yet reached the rest of Beqanna. Not a change in leadership, she assumes, because Ruan still speaks as though he leads the Taiga just as he had the last time they’d spoken.

    “Please do,” she says when he asks if she has offered them a chance to visit Sylva. “Bring whomever you’d like.”

    As he pauses, Djinni does as well. Her pale gaze flickers over the forest and she feels a dull ache in her udder, a reminder that she needs to find her son. He is nearly old enough to leave her side (which he does, frequently, but not yet forever), and sometime in the months since his birth her desire to keep Sylva safe has become a need to protect it for his sake, to hold a sanctuary from the dangers of the outside world. She’s not yet conscious of that, of course, and when Ruan asks for suggestions she does not linger on her family.

    “Perhaps not Pangea,” she says with a wry grin, “Unless you’d like to meet the self-proclaimed ‘big bads’ of Beqanna”. Knowing the enemy is good, she knows, but they’ve also yet to try anything especially bad. “Sylva is allied with Nerine – the new amazons – and we have good relations with Tephra. Beyond that, Sylva tends to stay within its borders.”

    all my fragile strength is gone
    D J I N N I
    genie | rose gold tobiano dun | trickster
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