there's a bad moon on the rise - anyone

[Ephrelle]

the ones that love me, i tend to leave behind Ephrelle’s first breath had been taken in the humid forest air; she was tied to the Jungle before her life truly began. Yet Ephrelle is not like those others, those girls that can trace their lineage through warrior women enumerable. Her mother did not serve here and her grandmother was no Queen. Her great-grandmother has never even been to this rain-addled part of Beqanna, and yet here Ephrelle was born despite everything in her ancestry that suggest anything but this place. Very far back, she supposes, she probably had family that lived here. She doesn’t know their names (she can’t even trace her own lineage past her maternal grandparents and on her parental side it ends at her father’s name alone) and she doesn’t really even mind. Ephrelle’s from-birth devotion is a choice, a choice she made as a newborn and a choice she made when she swore herself to the Jungle, and a choice that she makes every day. This is her home. She had not seen the bay mare, disguised as she is with the spots and her own stillness. Ephrelle freezes, her muscled tail rising to the left unconsciously as she tenses her shoulders to duck. But the voice she hears is not adversarial , it sounds as startled as Ephrelle. Perhaps she is safe, she thinks, and her tail begins to lower. It ascends just as quickly, her heart pounding in her chest as yet another voices echoes out into the jungle. How had she been so blind to her surroundings? How had she missed not one, but two(two!) horses in the trees? There is no cool logic to her thoughts, no steely voice commanding each of her actions so that she resembles nothing more than she does a horse hewn of ice. Cold, Unflappable, Proud. Ephrelle is none of those things, least of all every one of them at once, especially not in moments such as this. The second voice introduces itself as Lagertha, and Ephrelle suddenly wishes she has stayed away just ten minutes longer. Of all the mares she could have run into today, the Khaleesi would have been the only one worse than Lagertha. The varnish roan filly is a part of the army in name only and the General knows it. She knows her name too, Ephrelle hears, blinking wide green eyes. “Ye…Yes.” She manages to spit out, but it is a near thing. “My name is Ephrelle.” The other mare’s name is Tantalize, the smoky black horse surmises, but she does not recognize it. The only Khaleesi she has ever known is Scorch, and she could not name the bald mare’s predecessor if her own life depended on it. She assumes that the dull silence of the Jungle is the way the place has always been. To Ephrelle, the Jungle is warrior women in name only – she has only ever heard of Lagertha participating in an actual battle. On edge, she does not notice the grey mare’s lack of tattoos, but that would have done much to calm her if only she had glanced down. e p h r e l l e if you know about me and choose to stay then take this pleasure and take it with the pain