and let me crawl inside your veins. I'll build a wall, give you a ball and chain.
Starsin, for all her intensity and sometimes brash, calloused way of handling things, was no stranger to heartache. She knew what it meant to spend every night next to someone and for them to suddenly be gone. She knew what it meant to have the foundation of everything you knew suddenly reduced to ash right at your feet.
She also knew what it meant to have been the one that lit the fire that lead to the final destruction; to be the one that tossed the lit match into the gasoline and watched everything go up in flames, because if she was going to burn, she wanted it to be on her terms.
The fact that her and Ophanim had risen from those ashes was a miracle in itself, and with his heart so securely inside of her own ribcage it was hard for her to imagine that they had come so close to being irreparable. The scar across her chest was ugly and jagged, but she found that she didn’t mind it because somehow the punishment had worked in their favor.
And maybe that’s why when she had been slipping through the forest of the common grounds one night that the sight of Wolfbane with the red mare had caused her to freeze in her tracks. Maybe reliving her own betrayal and all of Ophanim’s infidelities at the sight of something that was clearly not platonic caused heat to flash across her skin, and her dark blue eyes to narrow accusingly. Wolfbane and Lepis – you didn’t have one without the other. They had been a figurehead of the South for as long as she could remember, and while she wouldn’t consider herself especially close with Lepis, there was still a sense of loyalty at having shared a home. She had been almost disappointed when they had left for Taiga, but she assumed they had their reasons. Lepis was ambitious, and it was why she wasn’t surprised to hear she was stirring trouble in her new home.
It had taken all of her self-control to not reveal herself from the shadows, to not sweetly ask Wolfbane how his wife was fairing, especially after the tragic loss of their child in the Loess-Tephra war – just a small barb on a surely unhealed wound, since rumor had it that it was Wolfbane that had failed to save him. But Starsin was just so nice recently, and so she remained hidden and silent, listening to their thoughts and gathering her information – storing it away until she could decide how best to use it.
As if she learned nothing from Litotes, Kensa, and Brigade.
Or worse, maybe she had.
When she comes across the dun mare along the border between their kingdoms, she is mildly surprised. For one, it was not often that Starsin patrolled in the evenings, but tonight she was restless. Maybe it was the familiar fluttering of life stirring inside of her, even though it would be months before she outwardly showed any signs of it. Whatever the reason, it almost feels like fate to have ran into just the woman she had been wanting to see. At how much more pleasant this would be since she didn’t have to seek her out to drop a bombshell on her. Clearly since she had accidentally ran into Wolfbane and the girl he called Lilli, and now accidentally ran into Lepis, it was a sign from the universe that she was suppose to share her findings.
And who was she to argue with the universe?
“Lepis,” she responds brightly – maybe a little too brightly, since Starsin was not really the sunny type. She dials it back, further emerging from the autumn colors of the forest to join the Taigan mare, humoring her with a laugh before offering her jaunty rebuttal, “Are we going to argue about trees in the middle of the night?” She can tell that she had been crying, because she recognizes the signs; the way her eyes still seem almost glassy, and the way tears had dried tracks down her cheeks. It causes her own eyes to dim a little bit, treading carefully with her next question while still trying to seem nonchalant, “Shouldn’t Wolfbane be out here doing the patrols instead of you? I’ve tried to send Ophie but he gets lost. It’s just easier if I do them now.”
starsin
it’s not like me to be so mean. you’re all I wanted.
( just let me hold you Like a hostage. )
