lepis, comtesse of taiga
RUN AND TELL ALL OF THE ANGELS; THIS COULD TAKE ALL NIGHT
i think i need a devil to help me get things right Remind him of who she is, Starsin says.
But who is she?
There was a time when she was nothing. When Lepis was nothing more than sadness and fear, when a kick to the ribs woke her up in the morning and a blow to the head put her to sleep at night (or afternoon, or dawn, or mid-morning). Six seasons of nothing but hurting inside and out, and only when she was used up, hollowed out, and empty was she unceremoniously thrown back on Loess’ doorstep. Scrabbling and desperate, she had held tight to anything in reach, used it to build herself into a semblance of what she thought she should be. Acting whole became easy, even when the foundation was hollow; gilt on rotten wood. Arthas let her lean on him, and she was grateful for the time it gave her, for the way she could slowly encase the rotten wood with some that had only a few termites in it.
And then Arthas had taken her back to Sylva, and everything about herself that Lepis had been sure of began to crumble around her again.
It was Wolfbane who had given her the first brick - solid and strong and hers - when he had given her the title of Cleric. He knew she was broken, and in more ways than the crumpled wings that hung from her sides, yet he trusted her with Loess. She made that brick her cornerstone, polished it until it gleamed, and around it finally built a self that she was proud of. She built it, with memories and actions and feelings, yet the cornerstone was always at the edge of her mind, a reminder she could not look away from. She could look away from Wolfbane though (she was a good wife, she told herself, she owed Arthas at least that). She was able to look away for nearly a year, until she could feel the very branches of Sylva pry at her, until the air squeezes the breath from her lungs and only in Loess could she breathe again.
Then there was another year of back and forth: Loess during the day, Sylva at night. Sylva at night except for the nights that Arthas went to Rey or Despayr or Taria instead, and those nights she watched the stars glide over Loess and breathed with a relief so deep that she felt ashamed. Never ashamed enough to not lie though, never enough to hesitate when she reassured her spouse that there was nothing to worry about. Not ashamed enough to keep her eyes from Wolfbane, not ashamed enough to pull away on the dawn morning when he finally reached for her.
Never ashamed enough to regret the choice she had made because she had known with iron certainty that being with Wolfbane was right even when she was unsure about everything else. She has questioned everything – it is her nature – and yet she had never questioned him. He was the cornerstone on which she had built her life – who is she without him?
A sob breaks lose, a single gasping breath of realization.
This is her fault.
Wolfbane knew who she was, had reminded her of it with ink-black claws wrapped around her neck as they fell through the sky. He knew, and she’d denied it. She is nothing without him, they are nothing without the other, and she had denied him. Denied them. She’d as good as told him that she didn’t love him when she’ told him she didn’t need him, and he has always taken her at her word. The sharpness in Starsin’s voice pierces her bitter self-reflection. ‘Fuck someone else and fall in love’, the grey mare says; hadn’t that been their own story?
It had been months in coming, that first confession, and yet the avalanche that followed had felt nothing less than natural. Months, she realizes, months just like those that he has been gone from Taiga. Had he even been gone, Lepis suddenly wonders, or had he just been gone from her? She thinks of Lilliana, who she had never thought to ask about Wolfbane. Could that be why the girl was willing to dedicate herself to Taiga? Why she had been so tolerant of Lepis’ rare display of frustration? No, no, she is getting carried away. Bane was not in the woods. He couldn’t be. Her husband might have hidden from her, but he would not have hidden from the children.
It occurs to her in a knifing sensation that, for the first time in six years, she will not bear his child come spring.
The knife twists and digs ever farther: Will Lilliana?
Starsin has seen her husband’s face on the children of other women, Lepis knows, and she blinks back unshed tears to look into the grey mare’s face. How had she done it? Even the thought makes Lepis sick to her stomach, makes the darkest of emotions rise inside her chest and hurl themselves against the walls she so carefully holds. And yet...it is not that which hurts the most. It is not the thought of him sleeping with someone else that tears her up from the inside out. That is physical, that alone might even be forgivable. Might be.
No. No, it is that he had to forget her to do it. He had to forget her, forget them.
He chose someone that was not her, when the idea of choosing someone that is not him is as impossible to her as choosing not to breathe.
This is not her fault.
The sob is no less broken than at the first realization, yet this time she speaks and the tears do not fall. Her voice is no firmer than her conviction – it wobbles and waivers as she keeps the emotions at bay. “You are stronger woman than I.” The dun mare admits. “I think there might be some things I cannot move past.”
@[Starsin]
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