[P] it starts with a spark

[Antiope]

antiope

forever may you reign
forever may you reign

A

ntiope stands in the shadows of the woods at the base of the mountains, watching the grullo woman gather sticks and long dry, dead things. Her eyes are like sapphire jewels in the darkness, twin points of curiosity catching in the dim light cast by what sun reaches through the thick canopy. The sun does not sleep and neither does she. Her thoughts do not rest, the lioness in her bones has paced endlessly since discovering the strangeness of the stillness of the brightest star in the sky.

Why?

But her attention is blessedly occupied by this mare, who makes fire out of nothing but a pile of twigs. No flint, no procured flame. It is magic, and the lioness inside her becomes too aware of the power of it, too hungry. She is too starved, and Antiope grinds her teeth against the lust of it. Not for us, it is not for us, she thinks, even as it hurts.

It had been for her once. All the energy in the world had been for her.

Once, Antiope could have fed this girl so much energy that she would have made a fire so large it might have burnt the entire mountainside, rather than something barely large enough to keep one warm in the winter.

Antiope aches, and aches, and breathes against it. She will get her magic back to the way it is supposed to be, she will calm the hunting, haunting lioness in her bones with something other than blood, even as she begs and screams and desires for it. There must be something in this world for her besides the lingering memory of the things she has lost and the hateful reminder of the things she cannot have.

When the woman settles down by her fire, Antiope slips out of the shadows. She disrobes them as if they are silks, letting them slip back and away, revealing deep lashing stripes and striking, pristine white. “Your magic, you must have grand visions of what you want to do with it,” she stops, just shy of halfway around the fire. If her eyes are the sea, her voice is its depths⁠—mysterious and lulling. But there is something sharp and observant in her. Something lean and predatory. Something other.

“I am Antiope.” She doesn’t smile, doesn’t say hello, and yet despite the strangeness of her, she doesn’t seem quite threatening as out of place. She lays down, though the lioness inside her loathes to stop moving, to ever pause in her search for satiation.

Perhaps, the firelight might flicker off the blade of her axe, tucked snugly into its shoulder holster. Perhaps, her eyes might invite the question of what would you do with it, without these limitations?

@Morrighan "speaks"

rallidae | rhiaan