10-22-2019, 03:17 PM
She wakes in the middle of the night with a soft gasp.
The habit of turning to the left has begun to fade over months with nothing to see there; yet tonight her eyes still flick left, her body leans into the empty space. Lepis is forced to catch herself. There is not someone there to do it for her. The nightmare is already beginning to fade as she becomes fully awake, and with it goes that brief second of brightness. All those months, and there is still a moment each time she wakes that she is able to forget that he is gone.
This time, the always-rending realization is followed by the memory of earlier that afternoon, of the evening he had disappeared once more into the sky.
Her children are tucked around her feet, and Lepis kisses yearling Celina’s forehead and smooths young Elio’s mane before stepping over them gently and out into the night. With them fast asleep and safe in their arboreal home, Lepis slips off into the night. Out here, the children cannot see her cry.
Patrols of the border have become habit. Wolfbane is not here to do them, and she has not seen Aten in weeks. Pteron has been lurking along the northern border, but Lepis doubts that he is carrying out responsibilities, not with that droop to his head, that expression on his face. So it is her task, and since she will get no more sleep tonight, she sets out.
The border lands shift as she moves through them – first the rocky edge of the ocean, then the land where jungle merges with the redwoods. Her tears begin to dry, though her eyes are red; it is too hard to grieve and watch for danger at the same time, and the instinctive need takes priority. The tropical trees begin to be replaced, and Lepis knows that she is in the borderlands between Sylva and Taiga. Her pace picks up, at least until she sees motion in the distance. Somewhere is there, a little deeper into the Sylva woods. The dun mare slows and then stops, her blue grey eyes peering through the woods until she sees someone.
The starry coat is first at odds with the autumn forest, but Lepis remembers that Starsin has been sent to rule Sylva. It has been years since the dun mare has seen the other, but they had both pledged themselves to Loess, and that will always be enough for Lepis. She blinks eyes that are still a little sore from crying, and with a voice that probably sounds less congested to Starsin than to Lepis herself asks in attempt to be jovial: “What brings you up toward Taiga? Finally decide to join the better forest?”
@[Starsin]
The habit of turning to the left has begun to fade over months with nothing to see there; yet tonight her eyes still flick left, her body leans into the empty space. Lepis is forced to catch herself. There is not someone there to do it for her. The nightmare is already beginning to fade as she becomes fully awake, and with it goes that brief second of brightness. All those months, and there is still a moment each time she wakes that she is able to forget that he is gone.
This time, the always-rending realization is followed by the memory of earlier that afternoon, of the evening he had disappeared once more into the sky.
Her children are tucked around her feet, and Lepis kisses yearling Celina’s forehead and smooths young Elio’s mane before stepping over them gently and out into the night. With them fast asleep and safe in their arboreal home, Lepis slips off into the night. Out here, the children cannot see her cry.
Patrols of the border have become habit. Wolfbane is not here to do them, and she has not seen Aten in weeks. Pteron has been lurking along the northern border, but Lepis doubts that he is carrying out responsibilities, not with that droop to his head, that expression on his face. So it is her task, and since she will get no more sleep tonight, she sets out.
The border lands shift as she moves through them – first the rocky edge of the ocean, then the land where jungle merges with the redwoods. Her tears begin to dry, though her eyes are red; it is too hard to grieve and watch for danger at the same time, and the instinctive need takes priority. The tropical trees begin to be replaced, and Lepis knows that she is in the borderlands between Sylva and Taiga. Her pace picks up, at least until she sees motion in the distance. Somewhere is there, a little deeper into the Sylva woods. The dun mare slows and then stops, her blue grey eyes peering through the woods until she sees someone.
The starry coat is first at odds with the autumn forest, but Lepis remembers that Starsin has been sent to rule Sylva. It has been years since the dun mare has seen the other, but they had both pledged themselves to Loess, and that will always be enough for Lepis. She blinks eyes that are still a little sore from crying, and with a voice that probably sounds less congested to Starsin than to Lepis herself asks in attempt to be jovial: “What brings you up toward Taiga? Finally decide to join the better forest?”
@[Starsin]
