again you’re gone, off on a different path than mine
i'm left behind wondering if i should follow
It’s not a synonym Lepis hasn’t heard before, and it’s not the first time someone has said it to her face. It is, however, the first time she’s laughed in response, and answered with something as venomless as: “I certainly hope not. I’d like to hold on to my skin till old age.”
“Castile might be able to stop him,” Lepis admits, but it is clear from the dismissive way she shakes her head that this is a possibility that she has already considered and dismissed. Intense heat – like dragonfire and lava – Lepis knows to be fatal, even to those who otherwise seem immortal. She is not sure if killing without consuming the heart would be enough to end the Curse though, and there are few things Beqanna needs less than it does a Cursed and feral Dragon King. “But then we’d have a cursed Dragon instead.”
Avoiding that possibility is a reasonable enough excuse to not enlist Castile.
“At least I think we would. I was hoping Heartfire could tell me more about the Curse.” She’d hoped in vain, the small shake of her head says. Heartfire is gone, and Neverwhere no help at all. Lepis’ knowledge of the magic that afflicts her husband is limited to what he had told her and the scant bits of it she’s seen with her own eyes. As she follows along beside Neverwhere, moving toward the trees, thinking. Neverwhere mentions someone that might be able to help, and while Lepis does glance over, she does not inquire farther. Either the mare will elaborate or ask this stranger, or she will not.
When Neverwhere repeats the word revive, it is Lepis’ turn to laugh. “There is no quarrel between our lands,” she says when the brief laughter ends, adding a shrug and a raised brow just before: “As long as you do not object to Loess’ acquisition of Taiga.”
Perhaps that is what Heartfire had meant by threats, Lepis thinks. The dun mare hadn’t meant it that way; she was only continuing in her vein of truth (and thinks herself rather amusing as well). The amusement dies at the final question of the bald-faced mare, and Lepis’ smile turns quickly to a scowl.
“I’ve seen him once already.” Her tone says quite clearly that she does not wish to repeat the experience, and yet she continues: “I had let myself forget how quick he was. It is not a mistake I will make again.” She is equipped to deal with him, her certainty says, she is not a creature to admit to mistakes when there is ever a chance she might repeat them. Coming here meant risking death, and yet Lepis feels certain the North will continue to place the victim. It’s been a functional tactic thus far, so she cannot blame them. But it has certainly put an obstacle in the path of the dun mare’s ambitions.
The command her King had given her was designed to give Loess a leg up in the quarrel she has just downplayed the existence of, but what Lepis has now learned on her trip here cements the necessity of it for another reason entirely. If Heartfire is not here, it is time to try another route. Leliana had been unable to break a curse, but she is not the only magician in Beqanna. Perhaps she is not the most powerful either. Lepis has never bothered to consider the strength of one magician to another; perhaps now it is time to do so. She takes a long breath, backing herself into a more protected part of the copse of trees.
“Thank you for the shelter.” She tells Neverwhere, and settles in to wait for the storm to pass.
LEPIS
i’m the one who sees you home--
but now i’m lost in the woods
and i don’t know what path you are on |
