| LIKE WATER FLOWING INTO LUNGS.
Anaxarete cares little for those she has offended. Even less for those who take no responsibility for their own actions. In her younger days, she would have rolled her eyes and stormed off in a huff. But over a century of life had blessed her with control. Near-perfect control. “Perhaps you should be more careful with your words, then,” she quiped, not at all believing this explanation. “Appearances can be deceiving. Remember that.” A warning, for she knows that there are many in Beqanna who look weak or beautiful and are anything but.
Her attention quickly shifts to the strange hybrid that had been drawn to the scene. She had never seen a creature quite like the part-hippogriff. That was saying something from a woman who spent the majority of her time with strange, alien creatures. She watches with a genuine sense of interest. And it wasn’t just the the boy’s physical appearance that was strange. It was the aura that he pulled around himself.
It was a curious combination to be sure - this creature with talons and a sharp beak with a near-desperate need to be loved. And the creature seems positively offended by the bull-stallion. And before the shadow mare can react further, a familiar sensation floods her veins.
Familiarity was not expected in this strange new iteration of Beqanna.
But this was familiar in a more intimate sense - this was her blood, her darkness.
A small smile appeared on her dark lips, and she turned to find the shadows she had borne into this world. Niklas carried not just her blood - but all of her darkness and some. She was pleased to find him here - and her thoughts turned to his father for a fleeting moment - but her attention almost immediately returned to her son. There are so few she would allow to touch her that the sensation is foreign, but more than welcome. Her shadows reach to embrace him - their kin. “Niklas,” she breathes, “It has been too long.”
It feels intimate - this reunion in the meadow. However, she hopes that the meeting is not fleeting, that he intends to stay.
“You should come with me to Pangea, son,” she said, the affection clear in her voice. However she had not forgotten about the hybrid boy, either. “You could come too,” she says to Dreamscar. She does not extend an invitation to the horned colt, for she already knows that would be a wasted invitation.
A N A X A R E T E
been there, done that |
