the fault in our stars

[Scorch]

WATCH THE FLAMES CLIMB HIGH INTO THE NIGHT

Everything ached for too long. With time, even the strictest of the strict self-imposed time-outs had to come to an end. Call her weak-willed (it would be true, though you'd be wasting the label on the least of her will-associated crimes) but as months turned into years and bastard children turned into bastard adults, Scorch found herself itching for something. Anything. Everything.

(But most of all, her husband. Or Brennen? Not Brunhild, though she wonders if she would even try to keep it in her pants if that option made itself available again. What would she gain by practicing celibacy at this rate, anyway? She and Hestoni no longer talked in a way that could support intimacy [yet, anyway] and she'd caught wind of her best friend becoming married to her grandson. A cruel twist of fate! Or rather, a cruel twist of her own doing. But we didn't come all this way to type about previous wrongdoings - this post features forward movement! What, you don't believe me? Well, I had you for a moment there, anyway.)

Everything, it turned out, happened to be in the field. At least her hooves thought so. In the midst of her meager attempts at decision making (to Ischia or to Nerine, to Ischia or to Nerine???), she'd made her way to this godforsaken land by accident. How many times had she set hoof in this charming pasture, so full of hope, bright eyes, and optimism? How many times had she brought a woman home to the Jungle or to Nerine in the name of the Sisterhood?

Enough to have seen the Sisterhood liquidated, anyway.

And besides, it wasn't like she could recruit anyone anywhere now anyway.

Oh, Gods, the mare keened. Am I - hheughch - am I a recruit?

Too late to figure it out now, Scorchy. Besides, you hadn't any better plans.

Deep breath. A step forward.

Forward. The movement sent a lurch of anxiety through the once-Khaleesi, one which reeked of shame and uncertainty. The bull-headed confidence she'd earned from Hestoni's undying love of her hideous self had evaporated alongside their marriage; how could she fave the vulnerability of the open field like this? Homeless, loveless, and as rat-like as she'd ever been. Hairless except for dirty bay patches here and there and covered in the black-pink-grey of decades old burn scars, Scorch more than lived up to her name. And no one knew her name any more - even her legacy had abandoned her by her own making. She felt certain that anyone she met here wouldn't even blink at the stories she'd told to date.

Yet here she stood, heart-in-throat, on the cusp of telling just one more.

A mare caught her dragon's gaze; grey, single-socked, built slight and fine. Even from here she smelled of a-nother land. Something about the notion of being beside another newcomer felt reassuring to Scorch and so, with a deft pick-up of her baroque heels, she trotted to come alongside the other. Little did she know that in doing so, she became acquainted to one whose story resembled her own in more ways than could be chalked up to mere chance.

"Hello," came the rat's brusque voice, low and cracking from the charring it received so long ago. "The name's Scorch." Her pupiless gaze, a caramelized purple at this moment, dropped in a well-mannered greeting. "I don't have a home to offer you, though if I did, I would. Just some companionship for now." And for now, that would have to be enough.

Scorch

Once Khaleesi of the Amazon Jungle

Is it even a Scorch post if I don't break the fourth wall?
"@[Lilliana]"