[private] and in my dreams i've kissed your lips a thousand times // Yidhra

[Kagerus]

Kagerus

{ and in my dreams I've kissed your lips a thousand times }

"Titles mean little," is all I say in response to her comment about being Abyssal. I couldn't call her that even if I wanted to, what with having my firstborn son being named Abysm. I don't mention this however, unwilling to disclose any personal information to the kraken, and more enthralled by her shifting physique than by my own unimportant musings. Still, I keep my intrigue carefully under wraps, nutmeg eyes half-closed in content and placidity, as if the creature's presence is barely enough to sustain my interest.

We are responsible for this.
I make no comment yet, blinking once. Beqanna is not a fair master. I have lived here longer than this eldritch creature, and though she has experience elsewhere, it is I who understands this land, not she. We are responsible for nothing. Beqanna does as she will.
You see me as a threat to your rule.
This I do not engage with either, preferring to let the kraken come to her own conclusions as to the matter. I do not, in fact, feel threatened. The turnout at the kingdom meeting was by far the largest in decades, perhaps since even before the Reckoning; whether she likes it or not, The Sanctuary has numbers enough to ensure that even violence cannot threaten us, to a certain degree. Certainly not by a single mare, at least.

She next accuses me of using slyness to gain authority in the East, to which I do allow some reaction. She is a perceptive creature, mastered in the arts of speech to say the least; this much I do not deny her, allowing the silk of my lips to curve into something of a smile. "I must secure peace for the Harboured - that much you can understand." On the topic of just how our dynamics will work with the Cove as the central eastern kingdom, I remain for now silent, as she goes on to introduce herself formally.

"Kagerus," I offer in reply, reforming my stoicism as she continue to describe her threshold.

She speaks of peace and of alliances, but I am still largely with doubts and hesitance. She is new in this land as I said, and I am wary of whether or not she truly understands the ways in which Beqannans can come and fuck up your plans. She speaks as if she has many who follow her - but she does not. At most, I can take her claims and her proposals and her plans as maybes, as hypotheticals: until she has a following, her words mean nothing to me.

But she herself is bound to authority as the wind is to the sun: she is master of herself, and I do not doubt that many will flock to her, if she plays her cards right.

I need bodies.
This, I take particular note of.
I have to help.
Just how, I am beginning to have a picture of.

"Yidhra..." I inhale to speak, think better of it, flick my tail, and then try again. What she proposes is not something one can come at head on - she presents too many sides all at once. "You impress me." Start with flattery - but at least it's true. "Truth be told, I hope that the harbingers of chaos will kneel to you - for I see in you a logic that overcomes the mania inspired by the plague."

"Hear me when I say this: The Sanctuary is your strongest possible ally right now. We hold the highest number of horses in all of Beqanna, and we are by far the most cohesive. Go to the sea and observe the others and see for yourself; all across the continent, chaos is being bred and evil is finding roots in those who thought themselves immune to its disease. The Sanctuary alone is the kingdom that has made it through this mess in one piece..."

"That being said, you would do well to oblige my requests. You are our neighbour, and I am not interested in competing for the title of Ruling Kingdom - we outnumber you in that regard a dozen times over. That being said, I am not opposed to hearing your demands... But you will not only hear mine, you will take them and implement them in your Pangea, too."

"First, if we are to be allies, then you are to be at least friendly with our allies: Tephra, and Nerine. I believe that Ischia has been absorbed into Nerine, but if it has not, then them too. Loess and Sylva I have no care for. Do with them as you will. And Ischia, too, if it has fallen."

"Second, you will not poach any Hyalinians. If they choose to go to Pangea, so be it - but I will not have them coerced or kidnapped. I have had my children stolen out from me before, and I will not have it happen again." My mind goes to the dream-war I had with Wolfbane, to the magmatic battle we fought that in the end lead to peace. My lips are set in a grim line as I continue. "And any evils that you commit in your land must not involve my people, nor may you ever imply that we The Sanctuary have ever endorsed anything beyond peace. You may do what you will and I will not stop you - but do not taint our nation with whatever choices you and yours make."

"Third, you will not allow your subjects to come into The Sanctuary unless they are passing through to other lands. They will require escorts at all times if they intend to come into the hearts of either kingdom or subkingdom. I will make it clear that the same goes for my subjects, too."

Here I pause, feeling that I have said nearly all that I must - but then again.

"Again, Yidhra, I must have it be known that you command a respect that surely none have in many ages here. The Sanctuary advocates for peace, and that will not and has not changed in the whole time that we have existed. Abide by our simple terms, and things will go easily for us - and we will present the strongest and most united front in all of Beqanna."

"Your cooperation is the last piece of the puzzle. The strength of the East lies in the choice you, and Pangea, make."

@[Yidhra]