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    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


    monday left me broken; Kagerus & Solace
    #1

    for every tyrant, a tear for the vulnerable
    in every lost soul, the bones of a miracle

    He did not come back and she still has not reasoned why he had gone in the first place. She does not understand, not at all and not now when she has a days old foal sticking to her side, sprouting fires, and keeping her from the full scope of her normal duties. 

    Kensa has never been so encumbered and tired. Plague, childbirth, and now the capture of her lover and co-leader have conspired to leave her ragged. 

    From the north side of the lake Kensa looks out across Hyaline, picking out the shapes of her friends, her elder daughter. The sabino draws one bracing breath of alpine air (coughs, shakes it off) and wickers to summon her wild little infant.

    The pace that carries her north toward the coast is not as swift as she would like, but slowing herself down forces her to take time to consider what she is going to say to her Queens. Crossing into Silver Cove means she immediately lays eyes on the the many people who left Hyaline behind for the safety of their new capital. In her exhausted state she resents them, and she is restive and sharp eyed as she holds herself back into a walk. As if they will not notice that she is not herself. 

    When she finds Kagerus and Solace it is hard not to give way and go to them immediately, lay all her concerns at their feet. “Go find someone to play with, Hildy.” She nuzzles the girls shoulder and then adds in a low voice, “...and please, don’t burn anything or anyone.”

    There is a boulder in the Primarch’s gut as she steps away from her child and trains her gaze on her Caretaker Queens. Luckily they are, for the moment, keeping their own company. She could not bear an audience for this. “Solace. Kagerus.” Her greeting is stiffer than she would like, manner uncharacteristically guarded. She drops her head a fraction, tired, sick, hollow eyed.

    She should get to the point though, she cannot be absent from Hyaline for long. Not now. “I hope I’m not disturbing you but I needed to come to tell you. Litotes is gone. He went to Loess, and should have come back by now.” She wavers a little, wonders if she should have just dealt with this herself, wishes suddenly that she would take the words back out of the air between the three of them...but then a sob catches in her throat because she is still young, and frightened, and exhausted. “They have taken him. I am certain.”

    Shame rolls over her, certainly they expect strength and boldness from her like she’s displayed during past times of trouble.

    kensa
    for every dreamer, a dream. we're unstoppable with something to believe in.


    @[Kagerus] @[Solace] Sorry she is pathetic right now. I don't blame her.
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    #2

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

    It is a cool spring morning; foggy, and strange. The mist hangs in the air as unkept promises hang over a relationship, daunting and unapproachable. For the first hours, Solace and I stay cooped up, wishing for the sun to come and shine into our kingdom such that the fog my lift. Alas, from our vantage point in a grotto in one of the mountains lining our western border, we see that no such wishes shall be granted. Lethargic and smelling intensely of one another to the point that our scents are nearly indistinguishable, we set out, walking comfortably in tandem to do a round of our peaceful kingdom.

    Upon reaching the valley basin which connects to one of our small lakes, however, chaos finds us - even through the fog. (I will come to learn, before long, that the chaos will stop at no ends to find us). It comes in the shape of a mare, ragged with plague but sick with something worse; news. I can tell immediately by the way her eyes sag, and by the way the child at her flank scampers off without even coming to say hello. My lethargy clears immediately, replaced now by dread, heaving and useless in the pit of my stomach.

    Primarch Kensa speaks our names, dejectedly bows her head. My nostrils flare in concern, ears tipping forward; but the way her eyes seem to look just past ours, I can tell that she is not here over her health. Kota and Velk have been around, she could find either of them if she needed - which she does need, I realize. I decide to remind her of her options, later - after whatever storm she is about to set loose upon us, passes.

    Litotes is gone.

    The dread ignites into panic, then into dread - a memory of Litotes' rash attempt to steal a Loessian' councilor forms like the flames of a forest fire in my mind. My teeth grind in my skull, focus dislocating from this reality a anger rolls through me, hotly, wetly. The fog suddenly burns my skin, where before it cooled it. Another memory comes unbidden into my mind's eyes - one of me impulsively and inadvertently declaring war on Loess. It calms me for a moment, but only until I remember that my actions had been in retaliation to Loess attempting to steal Ilma - Litotes had acted for no reason, and in fact, had acted against the ideology of the quadrant he claimed to love and serve.

    Scathing words simmer on the tip of my tongue, but Kensa's sobs stifle them. I see now, in the hollow between her ribs and the curve of her spine, her youth; and this fact lessens my rage some. Some. Solace had ruled since the age of four, or younger. If anything, Kensa had a claim to a youthfulness of heart; perhaps we had been hasty in allowing two green hands to try their luck at running a kingdom.

    Biting my tongue, I voice none of these thoughts. Instead, I look to my wife with angrily glittering eyes, hoping that sweet Solace will have something - anything - more constructive to say than I.

    KAGERUS


    Caretaker of The Sanctuary
    Lover of Solace
    Immortal, antlered Dreamweaver



    "@[Solace] @[Kensa]"

    my apologies for cranky pants.
    [Image: kag]
    dreamweaver
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    #3


    Solace feels Kageru's anger before she sees it. The way her wife's body stiffens as footfalls approach, the change in her breathing as her antlered crown turns in the same direction, it lets her know that something is not quite right. Their consciousnesses were so often intertwined, she doesn't need to look know the way the beautiful warrior woman's eyes are glittering as Kensa begins to speak. 

    The blood-and-bone queen remains notably silent and Solace steps forward, pressing her muzzle to the distressed woman's for a moment as she takes a deep breath. When she does break contact with Hyaline's leader and her crystalline eyes lift to those of their visitor there is sadness there because she has too few words of comfort to give.

    "I'm sorry Kensa," she replies, low and close, and the words cause her chest to tighten as she says them. She's sorry that Kensa has to feel the things she's feeling, alone at the helm of a massive kingdom. Sorry that Lie made this rash decision without consulting them, and sorry she can't break down the gates of a newly formed war kingdom to rescue him. 

    As she steps back, side to side with Kagerus again, this sadness in her eyes should be enough to let Kensa know that she isn't going to like what comes next. Solace wouldn't coat the truth in sugar. Kensa is hurting, she can see that, but they stand together as three woman rulers and she wouldn't belittle Hyaline's Primarch by offering false encouragement. 

    "Litotes attempted to make a prisoner of a king's adviser - for the maximum sentence." She treads gently at first, surely the young leader had known of her lover and co-rulers plans? "Not so long ago Kagerus and were prepared to go to war when another kingdom did the same to us."

    It was just the sort of thing which was exhausting her, the sort of thing which had been constantly on her mind for the last eight years. She was trying to run a sanctuary, and it was impossible to stand behind Lie's offensive attack. 

    "And while anyone under the protection of this sanctuary who is attacked or stolen without cause will be defended and reclaimed. He is experiencing the consequences of his action, and to defend him now would be compromise everything we have stood for since Hyaline was first formed."  She hopes that Kensa will understand on a logical level, even though she hardly expects her heart to do the same. 

    "But we can attempt a diplomatic approach if they will agree to speak with us. The East may not have much to offer them, but we will do what we can to help get him back without violence."

    S
    olace
        we're reeling through an endless fall
    we are the ever-living ghost of what once was
    Solghostdoll2

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    #4

    for every tyrant, a tear for the vulnerable
    in every lost soul, the bones of a miracle

    It’s Solace’s kindness that binds Kensa’s forlorn heart, and anger that strengthens it. She had hoped for comfort and direction and found a cold wall built up between herself and Kagerus. Solace too is unhappy but she is gentler with the foolish Primarch.

    The sabino will probably never forgive herself for this meeting, for how stupid she’d been in the months, days, hours, and minutes right up until this moment. Her sweet and gentle heart has been battered by a world that is more than beautiful mountains and the thrill of love.

    Kensa had not known why her beloved traveled into Loess. Her three young children had occupied all her time in those first days after Hilde’s birth and Crynn’s delivery by his birth mother. Loess was their neighbor, uneasy as that sharing of borders might be, so she’d known he’d gone there, but never his purpose. Realizing her ignorance fires her anger, which burns back her sadness and resentment and challenges her weariness. Admitting she knew nothing will make her look all the more weak and might seem a betrayal to Litotes. She grits her teeth.

    As much as she loves him, it is Hyaline she stands for. Her glorious abandoned fortress.

    “He did not tell me his purpose.” She says stiffly, regretfully. She does not scramble or beg for forgiveness. Does not condemn him. He is hers, Hyaline is hers, and she will hold them both even until it destroys her.

    She knows now that Litotes does not deserve some righteous rescue. Though she isn’t sure that’s what she had come here for… She’d come here because she was afraid and needed to know what to do next. “I… A deep breath, a steadying of herself. “No. No, I will go. I should not have come. I did not realize what he had done...He can be...capricious. A pause, her topaz eyes hardening. “Litotes and I are bonded, I will forgive him this. I have no right to ask, but I hope you will forgive him as well.” The gilded sabino mare steps back, considers leaving it there, calling her flame-child and returning to Hyaline.  

    “If I cannot get him back, you may send someone to take his place until he can return without causing me offense. I care for the well being of Hyaline, we both do.” And she hopes she is right, because she loves her Lion-Man and is not sure she could bear choosing between him and her Hyaline.


    kensa
    for every dreamer, a dream. we're unstoppable with something to believe in.


    @[Kagerus] @[Solace]
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