I'm in love with your honor - any.

[Vineine]

***She believed that once, too, that death was an inevitability. What every mechanism and breath was meant for — death and copulation, measured enough to sustain. Enough to reach equilibrium. These things move populations; and these things, out of control, burn them to the ground. A prime tenant of nature. And one day she would die. She has seen death, on her birth-mother, with the expected infestation of larvae at the foot of a beech tree. Her children would die, hopefully long after her, but not necessarily. These woman around her, as well. ***But Prague? Dear Marley? Long ago she had stopped trying to understand everything that the Mother created. Why She created, and how. It is not so simple. ***Demons and predators be damned. There are higher powers than all of that here. Life has been reconstituted. Recycled. Renewed. Everlasting. The Mother is so full of surprises. She is one herself, apart from all that seems right — unnatural in her quickening, two sisters fabricating life from a mighty, expertly wielded power. She had struggled with this for a long time. With differing so wildly from the conventional origin story, but here she is. Flesh and bone and thoughts. ***This world is complex. Unimaginably so. She only hopes to soak up enough before she dies to have made a dent. ***Her ears swerve. Maybe catching the slink of a serpent. Maybe the transition. Maybe just a rustle of the canopy high above them. And then the far more familiar sound. Hooves on soil, a voice, not unkind. She nods her head, returning the nicker with one characteristically soft. “Rhy. It's nice to meet you,” The pinkish mare smiles, perhaps a tad nervously, but there is excitement there, too. There is customary kindness, and erudition. She senses danger here much like when she met the young black woman. It is a queer, internal panic, stilled by what the eye can see. A feline scent, but presenting a decidedly equine form. The Mother has many surprises. ***She wants to ask everything, but she can only mouth a syllable before they are joined by another. And Vineine cannot help but be amused by the foreign scent on her — not feline at all, but not wildly unfamiliar. The Mother had concentrated her surprises here. ***This woman emanates a quiet kind of ire. It is off putting, and Vineine steps back a step, and she smiles. She smiles because she always does. Because she is okay, and this mare assumes too much too soon for the sake of her kingdom (perhaps). And Vineine cannot fault her for that. Some things are worth being cautious for. Her golden-brown eyes watch the serpent wind its muscular body around her... gently. ***With her gaze never leaving the snake, Vineine huffs a small laugh from her throat, shaking her head, and does as she was instructed just hours before: “My mother sent me.” Finally. “Prague. And a very fine young mare named Naga. Considered me a worthy recruit, I suppose.” She turns her head to the side a bit to get a good look, blinking slowly, “That is a beautiful animal.” With guarded fascination, she watches the way its individual muscles twitch. “I have never seen a snake quite so big. Not where I grew up. My name is Vineine.” *magic-borne daughter of Prague and Elladora ****‘...Herself in the Heavens, her beam on the waves.’