[private] Let's Have A Chat [Wolfbane]

[Wolfbane]

ALL THE DOUBT YOU'RE STANDING IN BETWEEN

Kagerus (once dream Queen of the Eastern Kingdoms) had a companion animal too. Bane remembered her leopard and the way it slithered around her heels, watching everything with fire in its eyes. He doesn’t remember its name, though. Back then it hardly seemed important, since the creature was bonded to Kagerus. Nothing but a wild animal touched by wayward magic. Whatever the two had between them Bane couldn’t guess at; just like he’d never be able to guess at how Aten and Turul’s relationship functioned.

From what Aten told him, it sounded like there was an immense amount of respect between the two. Ideally Aten could force Turul to keep a short leash, but he didn’t. He more or less gave the bird total freedom.
Because of that, a bit of the stiffness went soft in Wolfbane’s limbs. He relaxed, eager to hear all he could about Taiga.

Turns out Aten had been in these woods for a very long time. “I remember that fire.” Bane interjected when Aten paused to shift around, “I remember hearing of that fire.” He corrected himself. Taiga had been magically closed off from the world at least a year before Wolfbane had been born. Still, the news of what happened here was fresh enough that his generation learned about it.

The colorful stallion took another long, wary look at the lichen-covered roots while listening to Aten continue.

Apparently the Champion ended up right on the doorstep of this territory, waiting until the storm passed to pick up where he left off. His life spanned several of the others who’d ruled, and Wolfbane was impressed at the longevity of the stallion. When he stopped glancing at the redwoods and stared back at the bulky, roaning historian, Bane wondered if there wasn’t a bit more to the horse than Turul. Was Aten immortal as well? He considered.

“Lillitha came to power at the same time I made Loess a Kingdom.” Wolfbane reminisced, a bit forlorn and bittersweet over the history of himself now that Aten had finished. He sighed briefly and smiled towards the calm lake. “I didn’t know her personally, but her father Offspring ruled Tephra once and if it’s a history outside of Loess I should know, it would be Tephra’s.” He chuckled softly. For a moment the still waters swallowed his words and responded with a silver-like quietness, then he  asked, “Did you know I was born there? In Tephra.”

He didn’t expect Aten to answer the rhetorical. It would surprise him if the champagne-gold stallion knew that much about the Commandant, once-King. Unlike other rulers who’d been lined up for the throne like Ruan, Lillitha, even Aten and Lepis, Wolfbane had come from second-stock bloodlines. He’d been a prodigious recruit turned successor, weathering the tides of famine and war. But before he’d taken the title of ‘heir’ of Loess, no one had cared about the pegasus boy from Tephra.

Everyone who had: his family, Wishbone and her parents; they were gone. Either long dead or disappeared.

“Sounds cliche to mention but you and I have more in common than you think, Aten.” The manipulator said, shuffling around for comfort and displacing a few smooth, dark pebbles underhoof. “And it sounds like Ruan’s was a good example to follow. Fostering orphan foals… I would’ve never guessed.” He sounded contemplative. It wasn’t necessarily a straightforward option; seemed more like a long-term investment in the hope that at least a few would stay on and strengthen the herd.

Well, Wolfbane thought as he regarded Aten again, one did stay.

“And you?” The strange stallion with the bristly, upright mane asked,“What did you want for Taiga?” He wondered, quirking his mouth into a tilted grin that explained this would be his last question. Then Aten was free to drill for his own information, if he liked.

WITH WOUNDS THAT NO ONE ELSE HAS SEEN

WOLFBANE

@[Aten]