Antiope is standing in the study, with its big arching windows and ceiling that is a replication of the night sky. Her eyes are dark tonight, deep and dark and considerate. Other than a few sconces, the only light in the room is the moon shaped lamp hanging in the corner, which she has long-since discovered seems to work as if by magic. She looks out the windows, which are framed in iron and overlooking the shadowed courtyard and garden. Behind her lies an abandoned cup of tea on the table, which has cooled. She could not stomach it.

Something is not right, today. She can feel it.

There is a heavy, somber knocking upon the wooden doors to the study, and it echoes and echoes in her ears. “You may enter,” her voice feels wrong, every breath she takes feels wrong. The door swings open, and though she doesn’t turn she expects Sullivan, and his voice like thunder. “She is here, Your Majesty,” Antiope breathes, and looks once more around the room. As she is turning to leave her eyes catch the sight of something out the window. The dark face of the moon. Her stomach drops.

“Thank you, Sullivan, for everything,” she can tell the man is confused. She can see it in his violet eyes, “You have done good work, and been better company.” The Sovereign does not explain, as she steps by him and out the door. The hall seems to stretch endlessly on before her, fires flickering from their torches upon the walls. With every step it feels as though she grows no closer to her destination, and yet scarce minutes have passed before Antiope is standing outside the room watching Morrighan turned toward an open window.

She wonders, idly, almost without realizing that she wonders it, if this is how the gods felt when they saw her on their steps that day all those years ago. A reckoning. It is deep in her bones, she can feel it like she can feel her magic pacing, and pacing, and pacing.

Antiope steps into the room, and Morrighan turns around to face her. There is the smell of smoke in the air. Everything is slow, as the woman across from her begins to speak. Most of the words, she finds, merge together like some sort of viscous liquid, indistinguishable. She is hyper aware of everything. How close they are standing, whether or not she has her axe with her, how much space is around them, how well lit the room is they are standing in.

“I’m ready to be Denocte’s Sovereign.”

“I am willing to fight to prove my worth if necessary.”

Ah, those she hears clearly. It is like moving through a thick fog and suddenly finding yourself on the other side of it, and you can see so well. This is what the moon was trying to tell her, what has felt wrong to her all day long. This is how the gods felt, when they saw her standing on their steps. Betrayal.

She is silent for a long moment, eyes like storms at sea. Eyes like black ice.

And then:

“I will not allow you to devalue the progress this Court and its citizens have made by bringing violence to its streets.” She thinks of the festival they have all just held with those in Delumine, to do the opposite. To foster friendship and growth. To move forward, not backwards. She thinks of the scrapes and bruises that, until recently, Morrighan had been sporting from some fight she had gotten into.

Antiope thinks of how she had carried this woman across from her out of the gutter in her darkest time.

It is almost frightening, the way she says nothing at all. It is almost frightening, the way her mouth is a flat line upon her face, her gaze detached. “You do not know me the way that you think you do,” there is something else about her. Something other, that has been lost to purpose and intention. Something building. “Goodbye, Sovereign of Denocte,” Antiope turns, and leaves the way that she came. Only she keeps going—she goes down into the courtyard, and then the street, and beyond.

And she thinks about all the things she could have said, and all of the things she still wanted to do. Even though every part of her wants to burn, and burn and burn, she finds there is only grief. Only disappointment. She feels as a hollowed tree must: empty and collapsing. If she had fought she would lose the battle she is in with her own humanity. She has lost, anyway.

"Speaking."

- ✦ -

he silence between them is deafening. It's as if the world has stopped for this moment and there is only the ache in her bones (and heart). She hasn't wanted anything as much as she wants this, so she holds her breath and her heart is tight in her chest.

Morrighan isn't sure what she had expected to happen. She tried to prepare herself by thinking through every possible way the conversation could shift. She thought of a response for each reaction, but her mind is blank now. Probably because she didn't entirely expect this. She thought Antiope knew her better than this and could see all the progress she's made over the months. She's not the same woman Antiope dragged out of the bar drunk.

And yet, that's all she seems to see.

It feels like a knife is thrown into her heart and it's hard to let herself breathe. She can feel her fire inside her beg to come out, to consume everything in its path and give in to the boiling anger. She can feel the shock and just stands there rigid.

"You do not know me the way that you think you do."

"Neither do you," she says, although it comes out more like the snarl of a wolf than something equine. She is torn between disappointment and anger. How could this woman be so blind?

Morrighan had been merely acknowledging a tradition that went back many Sovereigns before them. Although she felt she had proven herself worthy, she would be willing to do more to show it. Apparently, none of that mattered now.

She watches Antiope leave and realizes she doesn't recognize the woman anymore. They had been friends, or so she thought at one point. The last thing she had meant to do was make her feel like she had to leave. If she had given her a chance, she would have offered her the position of Regent or Warden, or any other position she might want. They could continue serving their Court side by side, just with Morrighan having the opportunity to do more. To do what she feels like she's been working towards ever since Isra first promoted her, she just didn't realize it until now.

Well, here she is now, Sovereign of Denocte.

With a flick of her tail, instead of setting her fire free, she claims the fire from the torches as she walks down the hall. There's no time to yell back at the woman who is likely long gone by now. There's no time to grieve or to process anything else about this moment. She has work to do.

She rings the bells.

✦

you can't touch a woman who can wear pain like the grandest of diamonds around her neck