She doesn’t respond, at first, to the other woman’s observation but it is easy to see Morrighan’s curiosity in her immortality, the moment her attention shifts when it is mentioned, even vaguely. Antiope in turn is curious why. Does the idea of immortality only interest her, or are her intentions deeper than that?

Many of the equines from her homeland considered her immortality as goddess-like. It is part of why many worshipped her, revered her, feared her. And although her immortality had once saved her life, she had never been purposely reckless with it on the battlefield. If she would have gotten careless, she would have been taken down, even if it wouldn’t have killed her.

“I have always been this way,” she says, after a moment of observing the Warden’s expression. What is it, shifting behind that inquiring tilt of her head? Longing, perhaps? Antiope is familiar with longing, for things lost especially, and it makes her wonder if perhaps Morrighan had once been immortal and for some reason no longer is. “Ever since my birth.”

She doesn’t elaborate, mostly because she doesn’t feel a need to. If it is not obvious by now that her magic comes from some godly place then why would her immortality also not have? Antiope does not mention the circumstances of her birth, as she prefers to call it—so much better than creation, so much more real—because it doesn’t seem important to the topic at hand.

What does it matter, that she was not born a child of a womb, but carved from marbled and breathed to life with magic?


@Morrighan

Antiope wonders, idly, how one can used to be immortal, and glances at the Warden with sharp and keen eyes. But when she considers how, strangely, inexplicably, coming to this land had nearly stripped her completely of her magic’s strength, then perhaps it does make sense. Perhaps, she thinks, Morrighan was just not as lucky. Or, maybe it is just that Antiope had been the lucky one.

She doesn’t press the subject, because it seems a more tender one to broach for the other woman. If Antiope had the answers that Morrighan sought, she would offer them up, but she does not. There is no response she can give to satisfy the want the Warden carries, but if there is a way to gain magic and creatures with magical bonds to you then surely there must be a way to gain immortality as well.

The snow begins to drift down from the sky again. Whether because the effects of Antiope’s magic are finally fading away or because another storm has simply begun it’s difficult to say. The sky is still thick and full of clouds. Morrighan’s offer surprises her, and for a moment she simply watches the other woman walk toward the court.

Whatever the Regent had expected to come of these silly, childish races, it was certainly not an olive branch, nor something faintly resembling a friendship. “My treat,” she says at last, catching up to the mare’s side, “loser buys, right?” Antiope flashes a sharp smile, as their steps lead them further and further into the distance.


@Morrighan and done