03-06-2020, 06:44 AM
<center><table width=530 cellpadding=5><tr><td bgcolor=white><div align=justify> <center><table width=530 cellpadding=20><tr><td bgcolor=white><div align=justify> <font style=font-size:37px;letter-spacing:0px;line-height:13px;font-family:garamond;color:#15317E><center><font face=times size=2 color=#3D3131>staring at the ceiling in the dark</font><br> <font style=font-size:11px;letter-spacing:3px;line-height:8px;font-family:arial;color:#2B60DE;> same old empty feeling in your heart</font><br><br></center></font><font color=#3D3131 face=times new roman style="font-size:13px; line-height:12px;"> This is not the first summons Lepis has felt from the Mountain, but it is the first to truly reach her. How she hears it she cannot say; it is with something more than her ears. Is this how her voice sounds to others, she wonders, on those rare occasions she puts her thoughts into a stranger’s mind?
She considers not answering, but once she identifies the reason behind that desire, she heads toward the Mountain. She had considered not answering for the very reason she had heard the call, and the dun mare’s sense of ambition is so closely tied to her narcissism that answering to someone else feels like submission. This was the <i>Mountain</i> though, she reminds herself as she takes to the sky; answering the call of Fates and the Fairies is not the same capitulating to mortals.
Or so Lepis tells herself.
At the base of the mountain she lands, graceful despite her sturdy frame, and approaches the Summoner on foot. Lepis is not alone in hearing the call, it seems, and her blue-grey eyes skim across the assembled horses. None elicit a change in the serene blue-and-gold planes of her face, though wisdom keeps her on the opposite side of the gathering as the two dragons.
When their summoner speaks, Lepis’ blue ears flick toward her, followed shortly after by her full attention. The last time she had come to the Mountain she had flown away without hearing a word; this experience is already different. They are starting off easy, the piebald tells them, and Lepis does not disguise her reaction when the two questions are anything but.
Lepis knows that success is not found by those who readily show their hand, yet around her the others answer freely.
Ambition, the call had whispered, but Lepis has seen enough of the world (and herself) to know how easily it can be mistaken for greed.
Their answers are proof of that. Power, Position, Worship. All but the black-winged roan, whose quivering introduction at last evokes a change in Lepis’ expression. Something almost fond slips across her face, a recognition of her own desires in a younger creature. Some of her desires, at least; no one else could want everything quite like Lepis does.
The girl will give up her mother, she says, echoing the same uneven exchanges that the rest of them present to Straia.
This for that, that for this. Lepis, unskilled in complex magics but a self-appointed expert in bargains, finds them all lacking.
<b>“Peace.”</b> She says when the rest have fallen quiet, a single word to encompass the fathomless depths of her desire. Peace within herself, within her family, within her kingdom, within her world. Peace that only she can achieve, for she alone in Beqanna seems determined to have it. And what would she give up for it? Something equal, the only counterweight worthy of it.
<b>“And for it: peace.”</b>
<br><br><center> <font style=font-size:37px;letter-spacing:0px;line-height:17px;font-family:garamond;color:#15317E><b>LEPIS</b></font><br><font face=times size=2 color=#3D3131> staring at the bottom of your glass</font><font color=white>--</font> <font style=font-size:11px;letter-spacing:2px;line-height:8px;font-family:arial;color:#2B60DE;> <br>hoping one day you’ll make a dream last</font> <br><font style=font-size:37px;letter-spacing:0px;line-height:13px;font-family:garamond;color:#15317E><font face=times size=2 color=#3D3131>but dreams come slow and they go so fast</font> </center></font></font></center></font></font></font></div></tr></td></table></center><center></center></font></div></tr></td></table></center>
ooc: lepis is loyal to loess
She considers not answering, but once she identifies the reason behind that desire, she heads toward the Mountain. She had considered not answering for the very reason she had heard the call, and the dun mare’s sense of ambition is so closely tied to her narcissism that answering to someone else feels like submission. This was the <i>Mountain</i> though, she reminds herself as she takes to the sky; answering the call of Fates and the Fairies is not the same capitulating to mortals.
Or so Lepis tells herself.
At the base of the mountain she lands, graceful despite her sturdy frame, and approaches the Summoner on foot. Lepis is not alone in hearing the call, it seems, and her blue-grey eyes skim across the assembled horses. None elicit a change in the serene blue-and-gold planes of her face, though wisdom keeps her on the opposite side of the gathering as the two dragons.
When their summoner speaks, Lepis’ blue ears flick toward her, followed shortly after by her full attention. The last time she had come to the Mountain she had flown away without hearing a word; this experience is already different. They are starting off easy, the piebald tells them, and Lepis does not disguise her reaction when the two questions are anything but.
Lepis knows that success is not found by those who readily show their hand, yet around her the others answer freely.
Ambition, the call had whispered, but Lepis has seen enough of the world (and herself) to know how easily it can be mistaken for greed.
Their answers are proof of that. Power, Position, Worship. All but the black-winged roan, whose quivering introduction at last evokes a change in Lepis’ expression. Something almost fond slips across her face, a recognition of her own desires in a younger creature. Some of her desires, at least; no one else could want everything quite like Lepis does.
The girl will give up her mother, she says, echoing the same uneven exchanges that the rest of them present to Straia.
This for that, that for this. Lepis, unskilled in complex magics but a self-appointed expert in bargains, finds them all lacking.
<b>“Peace.”</b> She says when the rest have fallen quiet, a single word to encompass the fathomless depths of her desire. Peace within herself, within her family, within her kingdom, within her world. Peace that only she can achieve, for she alone in Beqanna seems determined to have it. And what would she give up for it? Something equal, the only counterweight worthy of it.
<b>“And for it: peace.”</b>
<br><br><center> <font style=font-size:37px;letter-spacing:0px;line-height:17px;font-family:garamond;color:#15317E><b>LEPIS</b></font><br><font face=times size=2 color=#3D3131> staring at the bottom of your glass</font><font color=white>--</font> <font style=font-size:11px;letter-spacing:2px;line-height:8px;font-family:arial;color:#2B60DE;> <br>hoping one day you’ll make a dream last</font> <br><font style=font-size:37px;letter-spacing:0px;line-height:13px;font-family:garamond;color:#15317E><font face=times size=2 color=#3D3131>but dreams come slow and they go so fast</font> </center></font></font></center></font></font></font></div></tr></td></table></center><center></center></font></div></tr></td></table></center>
ooc: lepis is loyal to loess
